The startup Blend has been working toward an ambitious goal: reducing the mortgage-application process to a single tap on a smartphone.

The company, which creates digital tools to streamline home lending, is actively working on a solution with a couple of clients, and it could be deployed in the next year or two, the company told Business Insider.

The company is also branching out, developing similar tools to streamline auto loans and personal loans.

Its founder and CEO, Nima Ghamsari, is featured on Business Insider's list of the 100 people transforming business.

See the full list of the 100 people transforming business here.

For the past seven years, the startup Blend has been moving toward an ambitious goal: simplify the mortgage-application process to the point that prospective buyers can find out whether they qualify for a home loan, and how much they can borrow, nearly instantaneously.

The San Francisco-based startup, founded in 2012 by a cadre of Palantir alums, provides software meant to help banks, credit unions, and other lenders offer their customers a smoother, simpler home-loan process. Using Blend tools fortified by data, automation, and the cloud, lenders can digitize the mortgage-origination process, saving time, cutting costs, reducing human error, and creating a more transparent mobile experience for applicants.

"Because our system is intelligent and we help eliminate a lot of the types of documents that were historically needed by using data instead, the process is lower friction, lower cost as well for the lender," the company's founder and CEO, Nima Ghamsari, told Business Insider.

"Eventually, if we're able to get this to be a truly data-driven process, the process of getting approved for a mortgage should be and will be one tap for a consumer," Ghamsari, who is featured on Business Insider's list of 100 people transforming the world of business, added.

How might this work? With the help of machine learning, Blend would automatically import consumer data into the platform at the outset — such as credit reports and bank records that verify assets, employment, and income. Once a customer hits apply, the data would be connected with the lender's systems and an answer would become nearly immediately available as to what and how much the borrower is approved for.

Read more: Americans stopped buying homes in 2018, mortgage lenders are getting crushed, and an economic storm could be brewing

The company is getting closer to making the single-tap experience a reality. The company told Business Insider that it was developing a one-tap solution with a couple of clients, and a rollout could be deployed in the next year or two.

Blend has built a business that it says now includes more than 130 lenders that account for 25% of the more than $1 trillion US mortgage market, including giants like Wells Fargo and US Bank.

But it's also expanding its product offerings, as mortgages aren't the only consumer-credit product mired in slow, paper-heavy red tape, and a one-tap solution for home loans could be used across financial products, given the similarity in required data.

The company last year announced it was rolling out a homeowner-insurance offering with MetLife, and in February it said it was getting into home-equity loans as well. The firm this month announced it was offering deposit-account-opening technology that worked in conjunction with its home-lending products.

Blend is building products for auto loans and unsecured personal loans as well, the company confirmed.

Read more: JPMorgan Chase shared a slide with investors that explains why mortgage lenders are getting smoked

Part of the larger vision at Blend is that by deploying products that facilitate lending via smartphone, it will expand credit access to borrowers who may not have had the time, knowledge, confidence, or resources to participate previously.

"There are parts of the population banking hasn't been able to serve as well because it has been so centered on in-person interaction," Ghamsari said. "Giving people at least the transparency and ability to understand what they can afford in very short order on their mobile device, it creates the ability for us to expand who's even trying to get credit."

This post has been updated from its original version.