Depository bank Citi has trimmed staffing levels in its mortgage business, following surging rates and a reorganization of its operations.
“Citi has made a small number of staffing reductions within our mortgage team due to internal streamlining of functions,” a spokesperson said in a statement. Bloomberg News first reported on the layoffs and reported that fewer than 100 jobs were cut.
The spokesperson said that Citi is “doing our best to support each individual by helping them to find new employment opportunities within Citi or outside the firm.”
Citi was the 19th-largest residential mortgage lender in America by origination volume in the first half of the year, according to a data analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance.
The bank funded $16 billion in residential mortgages from January to June, a decrease of 5.9% compared to the same period in 2021.
Citi’s staff reduction follows new leadership at its mortgage business. In August 2021, Citi hired Liz Bryant as head of retail mortgage sales directly from Wells Fargo, the top depositary bank by origination volume in the U.S.
Beginning late last year, Bryant was tasked with reorganizing Citi Mortgage, in an effort to better align with Citi’s retail banking division.
The bank’s latest move was the hiring of industry veteran Darin Lugat to be the new division lending executive for New York, New Jersey and Northeast Suburban in July. Prior to Citi, Lugat spent eight years as a market manager for Wells Fargo.
Like Citi, other depositary banks are reducing their mortgage staffing levels. Wells Fargo, for example, will lay off 75 employees in its home lending division in Iowa by the end of October, according to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notices submitted to the Iowa Workforce Development. The bank eliminated 197 mortgage jobs in Iowa across earlier layoffs. JPMorgan Chase and U.S. Bank have also shed an undisclosed number of jobs in their mortgage divisions.
