Fitch Affirms Bank of America's Resi Primary Servicer Ratings at 'RPS1'.NEW YORK New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of -- Fitch affirms Bank of America
Bank of America (NYSE: BAC TYO: 8648 ) is the largest commercial bank in the United States in terms of deposits, and the largest company of its kind in the world. , N.A.'s (Bank of America) 'RPS1' residential primary servicer rating for prime and Alt-A products. In addition, Fitch assigns Bank of America a residential primary servicer rating of 'RPS1-' for its home equity and home equity lines of credit (HE/HELOC) product. The ratings are based on the company's experienced management team, robust internal control environment and advanced, integrated technology for both primary, Alt-A and HE/HELOC products. The ratings also reflect the company's strong financial condition, rated 'AA-' with a Positive Outlook by Fitch. Bank of America is one of the nation's largest banks with consolidated assets totaling over $1.16 billion. The company recently acquired and integrated MBNA MBNA Monument Builders of North America MBNA Mercedes-Benz North America MBNA Maryland Bank, National Association MBNA Maryland Bank North America MBNA Mount Baker Nurses Association (Bellingham, Washington) , a credit card specialist into its franchise. The servicing division, headquartered in Charlotte, NC, is recognized as a leading originator and servicer of prime, Alt-A and HE/HELOC loans. The company operates its first mortgage servicing Mortgage servicing The collection of monthly payments and penalties, record keeping, payment of insurance and taxes, and possible settlement of default , involved with a mortgage loan. facilities in Buffalo, NY and Greensboro, NC. The HE/HELOC servicing platform is also in Greensboro. Bank of America's HE/HELOC business has received significant management attention and is the focus of the company's aggressive growth plan. As a result, the company has rolled out a number of product upgrades and improvements to increase its HE/HELOC volume. At June 30, 2006, Bank of America serviced over 4.5 million loans totaling more than $391.2 billion, of which $69.3 billion were HE/HELOC product. Bank of America remains committed to its Six Sigma Not to be confused with Sigma 6. Six Sigma is a set of practices originally developed by Motorola to systematically improve processes by eliminating defects.[1] A defect is defined as nonconformity of a product or service to its specifications. methodology and has implemented various projects to advance the organizations processes, leverage economies of scale and increase productivity. As a result, the company has implemented extensive performance metrics Performance metrics are measures of an organizations activities and performance. Performance metrics should support a range of stakeholder needs from customers, shareholders to employees [1]. to support its Six Sigma effort. Since Fitch's last review, Bank of America consolidated the default functions for all products under a single manager to provide consistency in its approach to delinquent borrowers and to better develop and deploy solutions to borrower financial problems. Further, Bank of America has also focused on customer relationships incorporating many cross sell opportunities into the customer service function through its customer service and relationship deepening units. Fitch believes that Bank of America will remain a proficient residential mortgage servicer of prime, Alt-A and HE/HELOC products. However, Fitch will continue to monitor Bank of America's ability to maintain performance as its operations continue to expand. Fitch Ratings Fitch Ratings An international rating agency for financial institutions, insurance companies, and corporate, sovereign, and municipal debt. Fitch Ratings has headquarters in New York and London and is wholly owned by FIMALAC of Paris. 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 'Residential Mortgage Servicer Ratings', dated Nov. 29, 2006, which is available on Fitch's web site at www.fitchratings.com. Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use Terms of Use are rules set up by the owner of an intellectual property or service to govern how they may be legally used. In many cases, terms of service are used as a contractual agreement between a company and users of a service they provide. of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, 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 Policies and Procedures are a set of documents that describe an organization's policies for operation and the procedures necessary to fulfill the policies. They are often initiated because of some external requirement, such as environmental compliance or other governmental are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site. |
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