Bank of America expanded its base of mortgage loan officers in 2012 and has plans to further this trend as originations come back.
In the first quarter of 2012, the bank had 2,795 mortgage loan officers, a figure that climbed to 3,607 officers by the first quarter of 2013.
The mega-bank released its first quarter earnings Wednesday, posting a profit of $2.6 billion.
Although Bank of America (BAC) reported a drop in mortgage banking income in 1Q, it also saw mortgage production increase 57% from a year earlier.
“From the origination side, the first order of business after we got out of the correspondent business was to kind of get the business on an upward trajectory,” said Brian Moynihan president and CEO of Bank of America.
He added, “You can see that the mortgage loan officers are up about a thousand year over year. We are still adding as we speak. The success of putting them into the branch environments where you have a mortgage loan officer and personal bankers, is multiples of the success in other branch environments. And so we’re just driving that.”
Moynihan said the company is training loan officers to get them up to speed before they combat the next order of business, which is overcoming the Home Affordable Refinance Program.
He added, “But there’s no cap on us in terms of retail originations. We’ll do as much as we can do for our clients. And we don’t see the pipeline slowing down.”
