Chase bank hiring 200 in Milwaukee - St. Louis Business Journal:

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New employees are working at the Chase 111 E. Wisconsin Ave., and are focused mainly on negotiating new payment arrangements with homeownerd delinquent ontheir payments, said spokeswoman Christine Holevas. Chas e is one of the nation’s largesy mortgage servicers with a portfolioof $1.5 The bank added billions in mortgage business with the Septembed 2008 acquisition of Washington Mutual. The new hires included loan specialists, negotiators, underwriters and supervisors, Holevad said. Many already have started training.
Chase has abouf 1,400 employees in greater Milwaukee, and nearlyh 950 in Milwaukee, Holevas Chase, which is part of , New York City, runs 41 brancheas in the metropolitan area. In Decembere 2008, Chase cited declining activityin home-equity lendinb when it announced job eliminations by earlyg February in its downtown Milwaukee home equity servicing center. Some employees who were laid off earlier this year are likely among those being hired for the mortgagerservicing functions, Holevas said. “We had terrific people and we want to get the best ofthosse back,” she said. Chase bank officials like the qualit y of employees in Milwaukee and their work Holevas said.
She could not predict the longevityu of thenew jobs. “As the business changes so do ouremploymenf needs,” Holevas said. “We staff according to customers’ As the number of foreclosures continuesx torise nationally, Chase is far from the only bank to boostf its staff for handling troubled Some banks, including M&I Marshall & Ilsley in have instituted foreclosure moratoriums as they attempg to modify mortgages to reduce payments. M&I’s foreclosur moratorium is scheduled to expir onJune 30.
In the past six months, M& has increased by 50 percent its stafr dedicated to assisting the increasing number of homeownerzs facingfinancial stress, said Dick Becker, president of the bank’ s Wisconsin community bank unit. He declined to disclosed the number of jobsthat M&I has M&I works with homeowners before they reach delinquencyu to avoid foreclosure and also seeks solutions for homeowners already in foreclosure, Becker said. Minneapolis-based , whicjh has the second-largest deposit market sharw in metropolitan Milwaukee and services more than 1 millionmortgagesa nationally, announced in March that it is constructing a buildingh in Owensboro, Ky.
, for its mortgag e services unit. The bank already employw 850 people in Owensborko and the new building will accommodate up to 300 new At the communitybank level, the loan modificationj strategies are implemented on a smaller scale. For , Wauwatosa, increased its collections staff from two to three plusa half-timwe employee to tackle the increased workload, said presidenr and CEO Doug Gordon. Collectionw employees review the home-owner’s financialp situation in an effort toavoid foreclosure, Gordo said. The employees discuss what the homeowner can affored for payments and whether the mortgage is he said.
The bank has successfully modified many mortgagezs and even stopped some foreclosures while they were in he said. “We’d much rather modify them — work with them than foreclose,” Gordon said. “Nobody wins in We don’t want to own the real estatd andthey don’t want to lose the real