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Citigroup announced it is going to be helping some of it’s mortgage customers from going into foreclosure.  According to NPR News, Citi will be lowering mortgage payments on more than 100,000 people who have not yet fallen behind. They said they are looking at getting some sort of similar assistance to those people whose loan they service, but do not own. Other major lenders are also rolling out assistance programs to it’s customers to help try and help control more foreclosures from happening.  Some mortgage customers who are paying their mortgage on time, say what can Citi do for them for being a “good” paying customer?  This is a legitimate question, however at this point if Citi lets more people go in foreclosure, then this will hurt our home values and economy EVEN MORE!  We don’t want that.

My question is why did it take this long to roll something out like this? Shouldn’t this have been something the major lenders offered before we got to this point?  Some are still asking who is to blame for all this hardship in our economy and mortgage industry, however at this point it might be best to just get the economy headed in the right direction first. Wasting time on trying to place blame is something that Americans need to avoid, and instead focus on how we can get the economy headed in the right direction. Citi and these other mortgage companies, I do commend for helping to start getting the ball rolling!

Leadpile Lead Exchange comes across all sorts of consumers is all sorts of financial situations every day.  However, the number of people submitting requests for foreclosure, loan modification, debt consolidation are increasing dramatically.  These consumers need help and we are going to help in any way we can, just like Citi and these other mortgage companies are trying to do.  Everyone contributing to this resolution, will help us ALL get headed in the right direction.

I have an update on an earlier post discussing Citigroup taking over the failed Wachovia Bank. However, there is a new twist in this situation. A announcement was now made stating Wells Fargo & Company has purchased Wachovia Bank for a $15.1 billion all stock deal! Citigroup had agreed previously to purchase Wachovia for $2.1 billion, in addition to receiving some government assistance with the transaction. According to Business Week, the shareholders and regulators are now going to have to decide the future of the bank. It appears that the Wells Fargo deal will least likely affect taxpayers, and this could be more attractive to those that will be ultimately be making the decision on the future of Wachovia Bank. We shall all see how it works out……..

With today’s news about Wachovia Bank being purchased by Citigroup, this leaves pretty much 3-4 major banks out there now. For instance, there is Wells Fargo Bank, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America. According to Business Week, this could mean the cost of taking care of your money, or getting new loans could cost consumers more money. “The larger the bank is, theoretically the more power they have to set pricing and other policies,” said Nancy Atkinson, senior analyst at Aite Group, a financial services research firm. “I expect we’ll start to see free checking accounts start to disappear, and rates on overdrafts could go up. Savings rates could drop, Business Week says.” Also, things such as customer service and answering questions, could be a little hard to get taken care of with these new consolidation of banks. Therefore, those that are maybe wondering how this bank consolidation affected them… maybe soon will see.
Will all these changes cause industries such as payday loans to become more popular, because consumers getting loans with their banks won’t happen as easily? Time will tell how this will affect Leadpile Lead Exchange and the types of leads we are bringing in.