Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) has added 2,000 new employees since April to work with borrowers that are having trouble keeping up on their mortgages, according to a Business Week report.
The Charlotte-based lender now has 18,000 workers in what it calls its “default management” division, a 60% increase since January 2009. Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) Home Loan and Insurance President Barbara Desoer said in a testimony prepared for a congressional hearing on Monday that the workers handle more than 100,000 calls per day.
Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC), Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup, Inc (NYSE: C) and others have hired thousands of employees and shifted staff members from other departments to work with borrowers that have declining income and job losses. U.S. banks reported a record 257,944 foreclosures during the first quarter, 35% more than a year earlier, according to data from RealtyTrac. Currently one-fifth of all mortgage holders in the U.S. owe more on their home than its value, according to data from Zillow.
“Given the depth of the nation’s recessionary impacts on homeowners, a considerable number of customers will transition from homeownership over the next two years,” said Desoer in her prepared testimony.. “We must compassionately and responsibly help those customers who have exhausted all their options and can no longer afford to stay in their homes.”
Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) services more than 14 million home loans, or about one out of every five U.S. mortgages. Desoer said that 1.4 million homeowners have mortgages which are more than 60 days late.
