Bank of America Boosts Loan Modification Services

Bank of America Corp has reassigned about 2,500 of its mortgage origination personnel as loan modification officers. The action is part of the bank’s commitment to provide better and more effective service to numerous distressed mortgage borrowers who are seeking assistance to avoid possible foreclosure.

The lender is apparently attempting to address persistent complaints from numerous borrowers who are currently trapped within an ongoing foreclosure crisis. Most of such borrowers complain that they are constantly referred to one bank employee to another when they try to find out and take ways to prevent foreclosure. Their disappointment further intensifies when they are always asked to explain their case over and over again every time they converse with a new bank officer.

The bank emerged to be the biggest home loans services in 2008 after it acquired Countrywide Financial Corp, then the top mortgage lender. Bank of America came under fire in the past weeks after the Senate Banking Committee conducted a series of hearings into allegedly anomalous mortgage services particularly those involved in collecting payments, business billing, and handling of delinquencies on home loans.

During one of the hearings, Barbara Desoer, the mortgage chief of Bank of America, revealed that the company is set to institute a ‘case officer’ system. The new system would spare customers from explaining their situations anew to different bank employees every time they call or drop by branches. Obviously, the system would assign one case officer to handle an account all throughout the process.

For their part, rivals like JP Morgan Chase & Co and Wells Fargo & Co have also announced their respective plans to assign individual case officers or managers to each troubled borrower. Market observers agree that such efforts are important and would be in the right direction towards achieving effective solutions to current foreclosure problems.

Since its acquisition of Countryside Financial, Bank of America has been actively trying to put itself up as an industry innovator and leader in terms of loan modifications. The company has assumed numerous troubled loans owned by delinquent customers of the acquired lender.

In 2008, Bank of America agreed to settle probes by various state attorneys general regarding mortgage practices. The settlement deal was aimed at reducing national borrower payments by $8.7 billion. Last March, the lender said it would further lower principal on several tricky home loans by about billions of dollars more.