Barclays Shuts Subprime Unit EquiFirst

Barclays on Tuesday shuttered EquiFirst Corp. of Charlotte, its subprime lending arm. EquiFirst - which at one time had 9,000 approved brokers in its wholesale network - stopped disclosing its subprime production a year ago. Two years back EquiFirst ranked among the top 20 A- to D credit funders in the U.S. EquiFirst told its mortgage brokers on Tuesday that only completed application packages would be processed for funding and that no new loan submissions would be accepted. The move comes about two years after the British bank acquired EquiFirst from Regions Financial. Very little in the way of subprime residential loans are being originated today unless they can be sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The private label subprime market has not functioned since early 2008 and shows little hope of coming back any time soon.