Ally Financial Inc., a bank holding company known for a variety of services, including car loans and its online banking program, has announced plans to exit its mortgage origination business due to increasing credit challenges and higher interest rates.
The company is expected to make a full exit of the mortgage business by the end of the first quarter of the year. The move is part of a reorganization of the large lender, which is also planning to sell its credit card business in the first quarter. The company is planning to lay off less than 5% of its roughly 11,000 employees.
Ally CEO Michael Rhodes, who took the reins of the $193 billion-asset company last April, is expected to focus the company on its auto franchise, Ally’s largest segment and its original business.
Despite financial problems, Ally reported $27 million in earnings from its mortgage finance segment in the third quarter of last year, up from $1 million from the same quarter the previous year.
Ally began as a division of General Motors in 1919. The company, then known as GMAC, helped auto dealers with financing. The company began offering mortgage products in the 1980s. Since then, the company has had an up and down experience with the mortgage business, even exiting it for a brief time beginning in 2013.
