A few months ago, Wells Fargo revealed that it is planning to cut as many as 26,500 of its employees over the next few years as the bank works to reorganize itself amid the shifting landscape surrounding the financial services industry.
And now, the first of those cuts are hitting home, right in the mortgage division.
Wells Fargo announced Thursday that it is eliminating approximately 1,000 positions nationwide in its Consumer Lending, and Payments, Virtual Solutions and Innovations groups.
Of those, approximately 900 cuts will be in the company’s home lending division.
According to the bank, the cuts in the mortgage division “primarily reflect ongoing decreases in the number of customers in default who as well as declines in application volume.”
The bank already disclosed that it is seeing lighter mortgage volume of late, thanks to higher interest rates and the company’s blighted reputation, so the cuts probably don’t come as much of a surprise. Nevertheless, there are still 1,000 people who are about to see their jobs eliminated.
“These changes are consistent with a larger transformation effort—detailed by Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan in September—to focus our business on evolving customer preferences, the accelerating adoption of digital self-service capabilities, and operational excellence and efficiency,” a Wells Fargo spokesperson said in a statement provided to HousingWire.
“These team members have been an essential part of our success,” the spokesperson continued. “We are committed to retaining as many team members as possible and will do everything we can to help them identify other opportunities within Wells Fargo.”
According to the spokesperson, the job cuts are spread across the country, but about 400 of the expected reductions are in Des Moines, Iowa, while another 111 are in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
