Chase bank hiring 200 in Milwaukee - Business First of Louisville:

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New employees are workingy at theChase Tower, 111 E. Wisconsin Ave., and are focusefd mainly on negotiating new payment arrangements with homeowner s delinquent ontheir payments, said spokeswoman Christin Holevas. Chase is one of the nation’s largesgt mortgage servicers with a portfolioof $1.5 The bank added billions in mortgagd business with the September 2008 acquisition of Washingtonn Mutual. The new hires include loan specialists, underwriters and supervisors, Holevas said. Many alreaduy have started training. Chase has about 1,400 employeed in greater Milwaukee, and nearly 950 in Milwaukee, Holevasw said.
Chase, which is part of , New York runs 41 branches in themetropolitamn area. In December 2008, Chase citef declining activityin home-equity lending when it announcef job eliminations by early February in its downtownh Milwaukee home equity servicing center. Some employees who were laid off earlierf this year are likely among those bein g hired for the mortgageservicing functions, Holevas “We had terrific peopl and we want to get the best of those back,” she said. Chase bank officialzs like the quality of employees in Milwaukeee and their work Holevas said. She couls not predict the longevity of thenew jobs.
“As the businessd changes so do ouremployment needs,” Holevaas said. “We staff according to customers’ As the number of foreclosuresx continues torise nationally, Chasee is far from the only bank to boost its stafv for handling troubled Some banks, including M&I Marshall & Ilsleyh in Milwaukee, have instituted foreclosure moratoriums as they attempr to modify mortgages to reduce payments. M&I’s foreclosurde moratorium is scheduled to expire onJune 30.
In the past six M&I has increased by 50 percent its staff dedicate d to assisting the increasing number of homeowners facingfinancial stress, said Dick president of the bank’s Wisconsin communityh bank unit. He declined to disclose the numberf of jobsthat M&I has added. M&I works with homeowners before they reach delinquency to avoidf foreclosure and also seeks solutionx for homeowners already in Becker said. Minneapolis-based , which has the second-largesrt deposit market share in metropolitan Milwaukee and services more than 1 millionnmortgages nationally, announced in March that it is constructintg a building in Owensboro, Ky., for its mortgage servicez unit.
The bank already employs 850 people in Owensboroi and the new building will accommodate up to 300 new At the communitybank level, the loan modification strategies are implemented on a smalledr scale. For example, , Wauwatosa, increasef its collections staff from two to three plusa half-timee employee to tackle the increased said president and CEO Doug Gordon. Collectionw employees review the home-owner’xs financial situation in an effort to avoid Gordon said.
The employeesd discuss what the homeowner can afford for payments and whethere the mortgageis salvageable, he The bank has successfully modified many mortgages and even stopped some foreclosureds while they were in process, he said. “We’dc much rather modify them work withthem — than foreclose,” Gordon said. “Noboduy wins in that. We don’f want to own the real estatd andthey don’t want to lose the real