Chase bank hiring 200 in Milwaukee - Kansas City Business Journal:

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New employees are working at theChase Tower, 111 E. Wisconsin Ave., and are focused mainly on negotiatintg new payment arrangements with homeowners delinquent ontheird payments, said spokeswoman Christine Holevas. Chaser is one of the nation’s largest mortgagee servicers with a portfolioof $1.5 trillion. The bank addesd billions in mortgage business with the September 2008 acquisitio n ofWashington Mutual. The new hires includee loan specialists, negotiators, underwriters and Holevas said. Many already have startef training.
Chase has about 1,400 employee s in greater Milwaukee, and nearly 950 in Milwaukee, Holevas Chase, which is part of , New York City, runs 41 branchexs in the metropolitan InDecember 2008, Chase cited declininy activity in home-equity lending when it announcee job eliminations by early Februart in its downtown Milwaukee home equity servicing center. Some employeesw who were laid off earlierf this year are likely among those beingg hired for the mortgage servicing Holevas said. “We had terrific people and we want to get the best ofthose back,” she said. Chase bank officials like the qualitt of employees in Milwaukee and theirwork ethic, Holevasz said.
She could not predict the longevitu of thenew “As the business changes so do our employment needs,” Holevae said. “We staff according to needs.” As the number of foreclosures continues to rise Chase is far from the only bank to boost its staff for handling troubled Some banks, including M&I Marshal & Ilsley in Milwaukee, have instituted foreclosures moratoriums as they attempt to modify mortgages to reducer payments. M&I’s foreclosure moratorium is scheduled to expire onJune 30.
In the past six M&I has increased by 50 percent its staff dedicated to assisting the increasinh number of homeowners facingfinancia stress, said Dick Becker, president of the bank’ds Wisconsin community bank unit. He declined to disclos the number of jobsthat M&k has added. M&I works with homeowners before they reachh delinquency to avoid foreclosure and also seeks solutions for homeownerxs alreadyin foreclosure, Becker said. Minneapolis-based , whicy has the second-largest deposit market share in metropolitan Milwaukee and services more than 1 millionbmortgages nationally, announced in March that it is constructinyg a building in Owensboro, Ky.
, for its mortgagee services unit. The bank already employs 850 people in Owensboro and the new building will accommodatwe up to 300new employees. At the communitg bank level, the loan modification strategie are implemented on asmaller scale. For example, , increased its collections staff from two to thre plusa half-time employee to tackler the increased workload, said president and CEO Doug Collections employees review the home-owner’s financia situation in an effort to avoid foreclosure, Gordo n said. The employees discuss what the homeowner can afford for paymentz and whether the mortgageis salvageable, he said.
The bank has successfully modified many mortgages and even stopped some foreclosured while they werein process, he said. “We’d much rathert modify them — work with them — than Gordon said. “Nobody wins in that. We don’ty want to own the real estate andthey don’t want to lose the real estate.”