North Carolina Bank Gets Boost From Mortgage Banking Earnings

BB&T Corp., a growing player in residential financing, earned $142 million in mortgage-related revenue in the fourth quarter of 2009, an increase of nearly 87% over the same period in 2008. The Winston-Salem-based company said it is seeing strong production revenue from its residential mortgage banking business and an increase in mortgage servicing income due to the growth in its servicing rights portfolio. For the full year 2009, BB&T had record mortgage production of $28.2 billion, with $5.3 billion of that coming in the fourth quarter. During 2009, the company's mortgage servicing portfolio grew by nearly $13 billion to $73.6 billion. Nonperforming mortgage loans increased from $375 million at the end of 2008 to $767 million one year later. In the same timeframe, foreclosed real estate went from $538 million to almost $1.5 billion. For the fourth quarter, the company posted net income of $194 million, a decline from $307 million in the same period one-year prior. During 2009 BB&T acquired Colonial Bank in a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. transaction.