What the Figure/Kiavi Acquisition May Signal About the Future of Lending

The recent acquisition announcement by Figure of Kiavi for $717 million has generated significant discussion across our industry. Some view it as validation of blockchain-based financial infrastructure. Others see it as a signal that business-purpose lending and non-agency products are moving into the mainstream. I believe both are true.

Over the last several months, I've spent time reflecting and writing a few articles on nearly 30 years in mortgage technology and the innovations that have fundamentally changed our industry. One pattern stands out: technology changes borrower behavior, and changing borrower behavior ultimately changes lending behavior. Similar to when I was handed the "life of a loan" when I started at Flagstar to explain the cycle of money to fund mortgage loans, I've seen how this behavioral cycle has driven the evolution of lending products.

Today's borrower looks very different from the one I worked with when I entered the industry; different careers, family structures, income streams, financial profiles, and expectations. The products lenders offer must evolve accordingly.

That evolution is already well underway. The growth of DSCR, RTL, Non-QM, and other portfolio lending products reflects a broader reality: many borrowers no longer fit neatly into the frameworks traditional lending systems were designed to support. As these products move toward the mainstream, lenders will need more than expanded product offerings; they will need infrastructure capable of supporting them at scale.

Technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and next-generation automated underwriting are creating opportunities that move us towards full automation with people oversight and verification. Lenders can support increasingly sophisticated products while maintaining speed, consistency, and scale. Underwriting can become more adaptive and aligned to a lender's unique products, guidelines, and risk appetite while still accommodating the loan-level exceptions that many non-agency products require.

But technology alone isn't the story. History suggests that every major expansion in lending has been enabled by a corresponding evolution in decisioning infrastructure. Thirty years ago, agency lending experienced a defining technological moment through automated underwriting systems that delivered consistency, transparency, auditability, and trust. Those principles enabled agency lending to scale and remain foundational today.

Here's a small but telling example. I asked an AI assistant for the estimated annual U.S. mortgage volume in 1995 and 2025. It returned $650 billion and $1.9–2.0 trillion. Roughly a 3x increase. Then, when pressed, admitted it had no sourced data behind either number. When I asked for a comparable 1985 estimate, it offered $300–350 billion, which would imply 2x growth over the prior decade. Useful estimated analysis, but ultimately guesswork dressed up as an answer.

That's the caution worth carrying into this next wave of technology; a real decisioning infrastructure making the decisions that AI can leverage to automate those decisions, not a confident-sounding output mistaken for a fact. The Figure/Kiavi deal could be an early signal of lenders building toward exactly that outcome.

As lenders expand into specialized lending products, many will discover that success requires more than adding new programs to the shelf; it requires modernizing the decisioning infrastructure that supports them and establishing the same level of confidence and consistency that conventional and government automated underwriting systems brought to agency lending three decades ago.

Artificial intelligence may help lenders operate more intelligently. Blockchain may modernize financial infrastructure. But the larger opportunity lies in creating a new generation of decisioning systems capable of supporting evolving borrowers, products, and capital market participants with confidence, consistency, transparency, and trust. The same principles that transformed agency lending three decades ago may ultimately define the future of lending over the next three.

Michael “Mike” Lewis is a growth-oriented executive and intrapreneur with more than 28 years of leadership experience across SaaS, Mortgage Technology, Fintech, and Financial services. Throughout his career, he has built and scaled technology platforms, led operational transformations, and developed high-performing teams.

As President of LoanPASS, Mike leads product strategy, innovation, and go-to-market execution for a modern pricing and decisioning platform that enables lenders to replace legacy systems with configurable, automated infrastructure. Under his leadership, the company has grown revenue 4.5x from 2023 to 2025 and launched multiple enterprise SaaS products serving a rapidly expanding national client base.

Before leading LoanPASS, Mike spent decades working within banks, lenders, consultancies, nonprofits, and enterprise software firms, driving systems consolidation, operational scale, and cultural alignment. His career reflects a consistent belief that meaningful innovation does not require starting from scratch, it requires ownership, initiative, and disciplined execution from within.

Mike is passionate about mentoring diverse teams and helping professionals develop the skills and mindset that make intrapreneurship as rewarding and impactful as entrepreneurship. Through writing, speaking, and coaching, he encourages others to cultivate strategic thinking, initiative, and innovation; skills that empower individuals to make meaningful contributions, advance their careers, and, if they choose, pursue entrepreneurial ventures with confidence.