Total mortgage banking income for Bank of America in the first quarter was $433 million, down from
"We continue to see mortgage banking income come down given our strategy to book more of our originations on the balance sheet," said Chief Financial Officer Paul Donofrio during the company's conference call. Because the loan is not sold, the bank does not receive income.
When asked about the strategy of putting more mortgages into its portfolio, Chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan said, "We want to control our destiny in mortgage going forward so that the customer we look in the eye and originate the mortgage with is the customers we service for, is the customer we have the asset quality with and there is no third party involved. So it's more driven by us just getting to our own, controlling our own destiny."
B of A had net income of $2.7 billion for the period, down from $3.1 billion a year ago.
Its consumer mortgage banking business had $122 million of income for the period, down from $288 million one year prior. Meanwhile the mortgage portion of the Legacy Assets & Servicing business contributed $372 million of income, compared with $461 million in the first quarter of 2015. There were also intercompany charges of $61 million for the current period, compared with $55 million one year ago which reduced total mortgage banking income.
Total mortgage production slipped to $16.4 billion, down from $16.9 billion for the first quarter of 2015. First mortgage production was $12.6 billion, down from $13.7 billion. But home equity lending increased to $3.8 billion from $3.2 billion.
Servicing fee income, which is recorded in the Legacy Assets & Servicing segment, fell to $330 million from $430 million on year prior.
The number of 60-day late mortgages in its servicing portfolio is now 88,000 loans, down from 153,000 as of March 31, 2015.
During the call, Moynihan was asked about the decision to
