Flagstar Pegs Future on Mortgage Servicing, Community Banking

The first three months of 2015 were a "landmark quarter" for Flagstar Bancorp, due largely to volume gains in its mortgage origination and warehouse lending channels. But it's mortgage servicing and community banking that Flagstar is counting on for future growth, said chief financial officer James Ciroli.

Here are some additional highlights from Flagstar's presentation at Tuesday's Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Mortgage Finance Conference in New York:

• Flagstar's compliance with a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau consent order is a work in progress. It's not like being in a hockey penalty box, where "you're in [for] a certain period of time and then you're out," but it's also "not as constraining as you might think," Ciroli said.
• The company is the ninth largest mortgage originator and the 17th largest servicer in the United States, according to Ciroli.
• During the first quarter, Flagstar worked to improve and maintain efficient turn-times for loan brokers and correspondents.
• Flagstar recently opened a branch in Detroit's Midtown neighborhood, which Ciroli called an "up-and-coming area." Meanwhile, it has closed other branches located inside Walmart stores.
• Flagstar is considering making some unspecified tweaks to its home equity products, he said.
• The company is also working on building more scale in certain aspects of its servicing business.