Chase bank hiring 200 in Milwaukee - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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New employees are working at theChase Tower, 111 E. Wisconsinn Ave., and are focused mainlt on negotiating new payment arrangements with homeownerse delinquent ontheir payments, said spokeswoman Christinre Holevas. Chase is one of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers with a portfolioof $1.5 trillion. The bank adde billions in mortgage businesw with the September 2008 acquisitiob ofWashington Mutual. The new hires includer loan specialists, negotiators, underwriters and supervisors, Holevas said. Many alreaduy have started training. Chase has about 1,400 employeee in greater Milwaukee, and nearly 950 in Holevas said.
Chase, which is part of , New York runs 41 branches in the metropolitan InDecember 2008, Chase cited declinin g activity in home-equity lending when it announced job elimination s by early February in its downtown Milwaukee home equit y servicing center. Some employees who were laid off earlierf this year are likely among those being hire for the mortgageservicing functions, Holevas said. “We had terrific people and we want to get the best ofthosr back,” she said. Chase bank officials like the quality of employeees in Milwaukee and their work Holevas said. She could not predict the longevituy of thenew jobs.
“Asz the business changes so do ouremployment needs,” Holevas said. “We staffg according to customers’ needs.” As the number of foreclosures continuese torise nationally, Chase is far from the only bank to boosgt its staff for handling troubled Some banks, including M&I Marshal & Ilsley in Milwaukee, have institutef foreclosure moratoriums as they attempt to modifyt mortgages to reduce payments. M&I’w foreclosure moratorium is scheduled to expire onJune 30.
In the past six M&I has increased by 50 percenft its staff dedicated to assisting the increasing numbere of homeowners facingfinancial stress, said Dick president of the bank’s Wisconsin community bank He declined to disclose the numbert of jobs that M&I has M&I works with homeowners before they reach delinquency to avoidc foreclosure and also seeks solutions for homeowners alreadhy in foreclosure, Becker said. Minneapolis-based , which has the second-largestt deposit market share in metropolitan Milwaukeer and services more than 1 millionmortgages nationally, announced in Marc h that it is constructing a building in Owensboro, Ky., for its mortgage services unit.
The bank alreadh employs 850 people in Owensboro and the new buildingg will accommodate up to 300 new At the community bank the loan modification strategiesz are implemented on asmallee scale. For example, , Wauwatosa, increasedr its collections staff from two to three plusa half-time employee to tackle the increased workload, said presideng and CEO Doug Gordon. Collectionss employees review the home-owner’s financial situation in an effort toavoie foreclosure, Gordon said.
The employees discuss what the homeownerr can afford for payments and whethe r the mortgageis salvageable, he The bank has successfully modified many mortgages and even stoppec some foreclosures while they were in he said. “We’d much ratherf modify them — work with them than foreclose,” Gordon said. “Nobody wins in We don’t want to own the real estate andthey don’t want to lose the real