Quarterly mortgage production at Citizens Financial Group Inc. slowed again and could fall even further in the current quarter. Annual originations ascended, though.
Home-lending volume during the final three months of last year amounted to $1.426 billion.
That was according to quarterly earnings data that was released by the
Providence, Rhode-Island-based financial institution for the three months ended Dec. 31.
Business diminished from the third quarter, when mortgage production totaled $1.561 billion.
But activity accelerated compared to the $1.101 billion in mortgage originations during the fourth-quarter 2014.
For all 12 months of last year, Citizens closed $5.721 billion in home loans, besting the prior year’s $3.668 billion.
First-quarter 2016 business is on track, however, to be weaker, with the origination pipeline deflating to $1.7 billion from $2.2 billion in the third quarter.
Residential
assets on Citizens’ books finished last year at $31.924 billion. The bank’s holdings expanded from $31.836 billion three months earlier but slightly deflated from $32.457 billion at the close of 2014.
The most-recent total consisted of $13.318 in residential mortgages, $2.557 billion in home-equity loans and $14.674 billion in home-equity lines of credit.
Also included were $0.986 billion in HELs serviced by others and $0.389 billion in HELOCs serviced by others.
Commercial real estate loans closed out 2015 at $8.971 billion, growing from the $8.678 billion portfolio as of Sept. 30, 2015.
CRE loan assets were only $7.809 billion as of Dec. 31, 2014.
The bank-holding company earned $331 million before taxes, about $4 million less than it made in the third quarter but better than $283 million earned in the fourth-quarter 2014.
Citizens Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bruce Van Saun
indicated in the report that there were “18,000 colleagues” at the organization.
Branch count stood around 1,200 as of year-end 2015.
