Consumer Direct will be the destination for ALL Wells Fargo customers in the near future. Meaning if you liked to work with a friendly face locally, consider this a distant memory. The leaders here are inept at getting the cost per loan down without getting rid of the “local” mortgage bankers. Now the customers of the entire enterprise will suffer dealing with extremely poor service from the Consumer Direct platform. I’m sure all the bank customers want to be referred to the 800 # and talk to someone either on the East or West Coast, yeah right! This will cost the company far more to move ALL of mortgage to Consumer Direct b/c customers in general do not want to come into a bank and be referred to a call center, but rather someone within their own market, that understands the complexity’s that go along with each individual market. Consider these bank customers buh-bye. These customers will laugh at us and get the loan from ABC Bank down the street where they can actually get a local mortgage banker. If you want to cut costs, start evaluating how useless some of our internal teams are for processing a mortgage, and eliminate these useless teams. Instead they plan to dismantle Distributed Retail and hand it all to Consumer Direct. Brilliant decision (not so much). February 28th shall be interesting.
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It’s refreshing to see WFHM implement a strategy to capture & serve bank households. Trends have been declining for 10+ years so it’s refreshing to see courageous leaders willing to make the difficult decisions. WF increased the incentive for distributed HMC’s self-source business and now they’ll have a team dedicated to serving bank customers - Brilliant! This strategy is about capturing and serving more customers versus an HMC centric strategy. Too bad WFHM didn’t have the courage to do this 5 years ago.
@1qyr+1flm8nLd
There aren't many underwriting jobs moving overseas. It's mainly data entry jobs that are feeding an AI so it can learn-and of course developer jobs.
Underwriting is set for replacement by AI. It's being rolled out for insurance companies, financial companies and investment companies en masse. Different products of course, but the same outcome - replacement of human labor.
@1uhk+1flm8nLd Wait until the lawsuits start or the regulators get involved. Criteria does have to be followed, but discretion is also used for many home loans. Our counterparts are fairly good about following defined steps, but I can see them not approving loans that should be approved, and approving loans that should not be approved. Asking them to use discretion is like asking the ocean to not be wet. See Citi vs. Revlon.
Plus they are sending more and more home lending jobs over to India month after month.
@1hqz+1flm8nLd
You can automate nearly everything, except things that require manual input or specific manual labor - electricians and plumbing comes to mind as some of the last to automate.
You think they care about the people they displace? They have gigantic emerging markets on other continents, they can use one for manufacturing and then turn around and sell it to the next emerging market and it will sell. Without true international anti-exploitation laws, it will continue.
Post ID: @1dkh+1flm8nLd
You can’t automate everything but a variety of functions, sure.
Problem is, business are cutting their own throat because those people getting displaced won’t be able to afford their goods or services anymore. But hey, that’s American business, don’t think past the next quarters profits. Our competition has 5, 10, sometimes 50 year plans.
That’s why we are becoming a third world country. That and the oligarchy we have become.
@1wqc+1flm8nLd
Automation is the future for 3/4 of all business. Data Entry, Underwriting, Insurance, Financial Advisors, Deliveries/Trucking, Transportation, Customer Service, Food Production/Farming, Food Preparation, even home building or management in some cases.
It's going to be a gigantic tidal wave of change for some of you.
Not a WF fan, but this is overblown. One of the largest mortgage companies in the US doesn't have local faces - Rocket (formerly Quicken Loans). They have an awesome digital platform (which WF is lacking). Old people, who more than likely already own a home want the face-to-face, but most young buyers would prefer convenience and not have to set up an appointment to see a loan officer.
Charlie has never liked mortgage, he doesn’t understand it and comes from a culture that focused on investment banking. Do a little digging into the background of the first guy he put in charge of mortgage ( google is your friend). It’s an easy sell to tell investors you will manage risk and costs with a centralized platform. He will not be investing in mortgage except to buy tech that will automate most roles. This is not Norwest anymore. It’s not WF mortgage anymore. This is mortgage as a minimal service to customers. And if you’re calling Obob leads now expect that to go away as soon as they figure out a robust marketing program.
Charlie does not want a large employee base in Iowa; too white. He has to bump up his DEI #'s and doing this helps out the percentages immediately.
Understand these things:
- Half of all branches are closing within the next few years. Customers may not have a choice of calling someone or going into a branch.
- AI is going to eat many of the data entry jobs in Mortgage -and other areas- very soon. HMC and PMB jobs will disappear as part of that.
- This is happening at most financial corporations right now.
- Reductions or changes in staff or the shift to AI for most desk jobs will not harm their bottom line.
The next few years are going to get uncomfortable.
The last mortgage I got was from Rocket. Aside from a quick phone call from the underwriter, everything was online and e-signed. I have no interest in either visiting a branch or dealing with a specific person when I can do it online.
Most of our commercial origination business is automated. Stands to reason that retail will follow.
Consumer direct = bad for business and reputation. To the numb nuts that said this post was from some old midwesterner that relied on bank referrals is just flat out d-mb. It’s not about relying on the referrals as much as it is a cost saving measure that will impact every single hmc or pmb because this move will flat out destroy Wells Fargo’s reputation.
Poster is just a midwestern old HMC that for years has made his money off bank referrals now those are being referred to someone else and he’s pi---d. Go find another referral source or go get a new job.
I worked with a Wells Fargo "local" mortgage banker who lied to me, and I filed a complaint with the useless CFFB.
Goodbye and good riddance is all I can say.
Quality control is higher with consumer direct.
Not great news for smaller markets. Private Bankers are remote, planners are remote, now HMCs are remote. I guess they can save on real estate expense by leasing smaller spaces and staffing them with a telephone. The phone booth strategy?
This combine with rising rates will hurt.
Distributed retail hmcs and pmbs cost the bank too much money. The goal of senior management is to lower the cost per loan and we make the loans cost to much in the company’s eyes.I would say have your resume ready to go as this could get ugly real soon.
What is going on with PMBers? Will they be eliminated if they aren’t in a top 30 market?
The dedicated hmc roles are aligned with top 30 markets and is merely an ARM of consumer direct
except the new dedicated branch HMC Model they literally just rolled out a 1 week ago?
Nah bro. They make a TON of money.
Home lending is the biggest cash cow wells has
Keep dreaming