Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) announced today that it has modified more than 240,000 mortgage loans from January through July, including 20,219 trial modifications under the federal government’s Home Affordable Modification Program, more commonly known as HAMP.
The bank’s lending unit, known as Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, is headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. The bank recently came under fire when the Treasury department stated that Wells Fargo had only started trial modifications on 6% of eligible loans under the Home Affordable Modification Program which was far fewer than other large lenders.
Currently, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage services one out of every six mortgage loans in the United States. The company says that more than 90% of their customers have remained current on their mortgage payments, and it currently has the lowest delinquency rates out of the nation’s top for lenders.
In order to provide assistance to the increasing number of delinquent homeowners, Wells Fargo hired over 4,000 new employees during the first 6 months of the year. The company has also stated its quickly working to eliminate the backlog of loan modification requests with its extra employees.
Heid Continued, “While the majority of our customers who request help are getting through to us and receiving the help they need, we know we’ve fallen short of our customer service goals in some cases. We’ve recently undertaken new steps that will soon enable us to qualify most borrowers for a HAMP trial modification during our initial point of contact, and then send eligible customers the required trial modification agreement within 48 hours. During the three-month trial period, we’ll work with the customer to collect all of the required items to determine if the modification can be finalized.”
About Wells Fargo Home Mortgage:
One of the largest home lenders in the US, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage originates and services one- to four-family residential first and junior-lien mortgages and home equity loans as part of the massive Wells Fargo banking family. Its originates some $400 billion worth of loans annually and its servicing portfolio weighs in at approximately $2 trillion. California is its largest market by far. The division also securitizes and sells home loans that it does not keep for its portfolio. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage issues and refinances mortgages at bank branches and online, as well as through joint ventures. (From Google Finance)
