New figures compiled by the National Mortgage Licensing System show a wide difference between the operations of state-licensed mortgage companies and depository mortgage lenders.
State-licensed companies are generally small businesses and operate in local markets, according to Conference of State Bank Supervisors executive vice president Bill Matthews.
CSBS this week released a NMLS report showing that 83% of the 15,883 state-licensed mortgage companies operate in only one state and 72% of these firms employ one to five loan officers (originators).
Only 11 state-licensed lenders have more than 500 mortgage loan officers, according to the first-quarter NMLS report on state-licensed lenders.
Among the 10,575 federally insured depositories and their mortgage subsidiaries, 53 institutions have more than 500 LOs. And five of those federally insured institutions employ a total of 130,000 LOs, the Federal NMLS Quarterly Report says. (The bank numbers tend to be exaggerated because banks register non-LOs in the system, including processors and underwriters.)
Meanwhile, there are only 105,600 state-licensed LOs working for mortgage companies and brokerages in all 50 states.
“There is an incredibly high concentration of registered LOs working at a small number of banks,” Matthews told National Mortgage News.
Overall, there are 379,600 loan officers working for depository institutions.
In 2008, Congress passed the SAFE Act that requires bank and state-licensed LOs to register with the National Mortgage Licensing System & Registry. Matthews is president of a CSBS subsidiary called the State Regulatory Registry that maintains the registry’s website and issues the quarterly NMLS reports.
