Sep. 28, 2009 (Business Wire) -- Fitch Ratings takes the following rating actions on the U.S. residential primary servicer ratings for MetLife Home Loans a Division of MetLife Bank, N.A. (MLHL).
--U.S. residential primary servicer rating for prime product affirmed at 'RPS2';
--U.S. residential primary servicer rating for Alt-A product affirmed at 'RPS2'.
The affirmations reflect MLHL's strong control environment, seasoned management team, and focused default management processes. The ratings also reflect the financial condition of MLHL's ultimate parent, MetLife, Inc. (MetLife), rated 'A+' Rating Outlook Negative, by Fitch.
MetLife Bank, N.A., (MetLife Bank), a subsidiary of MetLife completed the acquisition of the mortgage origination and servicing platforms of First Horizon National Corporation (FHN) on Aug. 31, 2008. MLHL completed its integration into MetLife Bank during the third quarter of 2009, finalizing the assimilation of its IT infrastructure and quality control processes.
As of June 30, 2009, MLHL serviced nearly 541,000 loans with an unpaid principal balance of over $97.7 billion, up from 509,442 loans with a UPB of $88.55 billion as of year-end 2008. Approximately 81% of MLHL's servicing portfolio by loan volume is serviced for GSEs. Nearly 67,000 loans with a UPB of over $20 billion are serviced for private residential mortgage backed securitizations. MLHL's servicing operations are located in Dallas, TX.
Since Fitch's prior review, MLHL continued to enhance its servicing platform through the addition of several staff and management positions in high activity areas such as loss mitigation, escrow, and quality control and increased staff training across the servicing division. Further, the company improved its quality control program through the implementation of sampling work review processes. Though MLHL continued to make several operational improvements its call center metrics for call hold times and abandonment rates, continue to far exceed industry averages.
Fitch believes that MLHL continues to operate an effective servicing platform with the appropriate staff, procedures, and controls in place to manage its current portfolio. However, Fitch will continue to monitor MLHL's servicing performance as the company continues to implement servicing initiatives to improve its call metrics for hold times and abandonment rates in a high delinquency environment.
Fitch rates residential mortgage primary, master, and special servicers on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the highest rating. Within some of these rating levels, Fitch further differentiates ratings by plus (+) and minus (-) as well as the flat rating. For more information on Fitch's residential servicer rating program, please see Fitch's report 'Rating U.S. Residential Mortgage Servicers', dated Nov. 29, 2006, which is available on the Fitch Ratings web site at 'www.fitchratings.com'.
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