| PNC Breathes New Life Into Mortgage Business
Wholesale, retail originations established December 7, 2005 By PATRICK CROWLEY |
| Five years after exiting the mortgage business, PNC Bank is jumping back into the game with a slew of new hires. The revived operations include retail and wholesale channels.Through its new affiliation with mortgage lending giant Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, PNC Mortgage plans to hire 125 employees to originate home loans by the end of 2006, the bank has confirmed to MortgageDaily.com.
The hires will be spread out over the bank’s 829 branches. Most types of home loans will be made with exception of subprime loans, the bank said. PNC, which is based in Pittsburgh, sees its move back into mortgage lending as way to improve its overall bank business by offering customers a full range of financial services, the bank said. PNC and Wells Fargo came together in September to form PNC Mortgage. It began operating first in Washington D.C., where PNC bought the 50-branch Riggs National Bank in May. Mortgage lending through the joint venture has gone so well in Washington PNC is rolling out the service to the eight states where it operates. The bank’s primary markets are in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, New Jersey and Delaware, according to the company’s financial filings. The new PNC unit offers homebuyers “a wide range of home financing products and services leveraging Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, one of the nation’s leading providers of residential mortgage financing,” PNC said in a statement. “The service will give PNC customers ease and convenience when selecting and applying for a mortgage,” the bank said. In the statement, PNC Senior Vice President James Burzotta said the company “is continuing to invest in a comprehensive array of financial services that are designed to make banking easier for our customers.” “Now we are giving customers even more choices when they select a mortgage,” Burzotta said. PNC’s expansion into the mortgage business comes amid some industry downsizing. Subprime lender Ameriquest recently announced it is laying off 1,500 employees. PNC exited the mortgage business in 2001 when it sold its operations to Washington Mutual, primarily a subprime lender, for $550 million, the bank said. PNC is clearly hoping to benefit from the size and reach of Wells Fargo, the nation’s top retail mortgage lender with more than 2,400 banks and mortgage offices, 5.1 million customers and 2004 loan originations of nearly $300 billion, according to the company’s Internet Web site. The bank is also the nation’s second leading servicer of mortgage loans with a portfolio nearing $1 trillion at the end of the third quarter. “We fund about one of every 11 homes financed annually in the U.S.,” Wells Fargo boasts on its Web site. “With the combined talents of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage and PNC, homebuyers’ benefit from the combined expertise and commitment to the highest-quality customer service,” Joe Jackson, senior vice president of Retail Business Development for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, said in a statement. Last month, PNC disclosed it has launched a new wholesale home equity channel that will service brokers across its consumer banking region. The company, utilizing Dorado Corp.’s technology, will offer home equity loans and lines of credit through the unit. |
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Patrick Crowley is a MortgageDaily.com feature journalist and blogger, and a reporter, blogger and columnist for The Cincinnati Enquirer. e-mail Patrick at: PatCrowley@MortgageDaily.com |
