Fitch Affirms Wells Fargo's U.S. Primary Residential Servicer Ratings

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Fitch Ratings has affirmed the following U.S. residential primary servicer ratings for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage (WFHM), a division of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.:

--Residential primary servicer rating for Prime product at 'RPS1-'; Outlook Stable;

--Residential primary servicer rating for Alt-A product at 'RPS1-'; Outlook Stable;

--Residential primary servicer rating for Subprime product at 'RPS1-'; Outlook Stable.

WFHM's servicer ratings affirmation and Stable Outlook reflect the servicer's highly developed control environment, the efficacy of its succession and transition planning, and its effectiveness in consolidating and realigning its performing and default servicing under one business unit to reflect the reductions in default processing. Additionally, the ratings also take into consideration the financial support of its ultimate parent Wells Fargo & Company, which was affirmed at 'AA-'; Outlook Stable by Fitch as of Oct. 13, 2015.

WFHM remains the largest mortgage servicer and it continues to make meaningful enhancements to its systems and processes. The servicer does not offshore any customer-facing functions and indicates that it has no immediate intention to pursue this objective.

WFHM remains under signed consent orders with both the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the respective attorneys general that were executed in April 2011. On March 18, 2014, WFHM announced that it had successfully executed activities required under both the consumer relief (and state-level subcommittees) and the refinance programs in accordance with the terms of its obligations under the various settlement agreements with both federal and state agencies.

In June 2015, the OCC issued a second Amended Consent Order outlining 15 of the 98 specific items in the April consent orders remaining outstanding. WFHM indicated that it believes that it has implemented all of the operational changes that resulted from the expanded servicing responsibilities outlined in the consent orders, including those outlined in the June 2015 Amended Consent Order.

During Fitch's review period, the servicer closed its Milwaukee and Alaska sites and moved the functions to other locations. The servicer also consolidated portions of its mortgage servicing operations in its Springfield, IL and Birmingham, AL locations. Fitch believes that WFHM has effectively executed these changes, and continues to maintain a robust servicing-site system network.

WFHM is headquartered in Des Moines, IA operating seven servicing/customer centers and four specialized loss mitigation centers throughout the U.S. As of June 30, 2015, WFHM serviced approximately 8.9 million loans totaling $1.56 trillion. This includes approximately 7.7 million agency loans totaling $1.24 trillion, 794,381 prime loans totaling $253 billion, 10,545 Alt-A loans totaling $2.5 billion and 80,349 subprime loans totaling $10.7 billion.

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 and Small Balance Commercial Mortgage Servicer Rating Criteria', dated April 23, 2015 which is available on the Fitch Ratings web site at 'www.fitchratings.com'.

Additional information is available at 'www.fitchratings.com'.

Applicable Criteria and Related Research:

--'Rating Criteria for Structured Finance Servicers', (April 23, 2015)

--'Rating U.S. Residential and Small Balance Commercial Mortgage Servicer Rating Criteria' (April 23, 2015).

Applicable Criteria

Rating Criteria for Structured Finance Servicers (pub. 23 Apr 2015)

https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=864375

Rating Criteria for U.S. Residential and Small Balance Commercial Mortgage Servicers (pub. 23 Apr 2015)

https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=864368

Additional Disclosures

Solicitation Status

https://www.fitchratings.com/gws/en/disclosure/solicitation?pr_id=993318

Endorsement Policy

https://www.fitchratings.com/jsp/creditdesk/PolicyRegulation.faces?context=2&detail=31

ALL FITCH CREDIT RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS. PLEASE READ THESE LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK: HTTP://FITCHRATINGS.COM/UNDERSTANDINGCREDITRATINGS. IN ADDITION, RATING DEFINITIONS AND THE TERMS OF USE OF SUCH RATINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC WEBSITE 'WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM'. PUBLISHED RATINGS, CRITERIA AND METHODOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THIS SITE AT ALL TIMES. FITCH'S CODE OF CONDUCT, CONFIDENTIALITY, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, AFFILIATE FIREWALL, COMPLIANCE AND OTHER RELEVANT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE 'CODE OF CONDUCT' SECTION OF THIS SITE. FITCH MAY HAVE PROVIDED ANOTHER PERMISSIBLE SERVICE TO THE RATED ENTITY OR ITS RELATED THIRD PARTIES. DETAILS OF THIS SERVICE FOR RATINGS FOR WHICH THE LEAD ANALYST IS BASED IN AN EU-REGISTERED ENTITY CAN BE FOUND ON THE ENTITY SUMMARY PAGE FOR THIS ISSUER ON THE FITCH WEBSITE.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151102006628/en/

Fitch Ratings
Primary Analyst
Michael Laidlaw
Director
+1-212-908-0251
Fitch Ratings, Inc.
33 Whitehall St.
New York, N.Y. 10004
or
Secondary Analyst
Roelof Slump
Managing Director
+1-212-908-0705
or
Committee Chairperson
Grant Bailey
Managing Director
+1-212-908-0544
or
Media Relations:
Sandro Scenga, New York, +1 212-908-0278
Email: [email protected]

Source: Fitch Ratings

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