Arvest merges mortgage division into financial institution operations

Fayetteville-chartered Arvest Financial institution, the state’s second-largest financial institution, has finalized the authorized merger of a wholly-owned subsidiary.

As of October, Arvest Central Mortgage Co. (CMC), a servicer of residential mortgages, started working beneath the guardian firm. CMC was based in 1997 and bought by Arvest by means of the Central Financial institution and Belief acquisition (Little Rock) in 2000. CMC’s major workplace is in Little Rock, with buyer assist operations in Lowell and Tulsa, Okla.

The financial institution’s company unification beneath the Arvest model is tied to a change in its residential mortgage servicing system. As of Nov. 1, Arvest accomplished the transition to analytics and software program agency Black Knight Inc.’s mortgage servicing platform (MSP) from Servicing Director, a third-party-provided servicing system. Rodney Bechdoldt, govt director of mortgage mortgage servicing for the financial institution and CMC, mentioned the transition impacts about 200,000 buyer accounts — 77,000 from the financial institution’s mortgage division and 123,000 from CMC.

Arvest mortgage account holders can even discover an improved on-line expertise that features entry to a brand new on-line entry portal and prolonged customer support hours.

Matt Kendall was president and CEO of the financial institution’s mortgage division/CMC and can nonetheless be the highest mortgage official within the firm.

“We did this for effectivity and customer support’s sake,” he mentioned.

He mentioned no job cuts or layoffs are tied to the reorganization. He mentioned it additionally shouldn’t be considered as a response to the declining mortgage market as a consequence of inflation and rising rates of interest.

“Our engagement with Black Knight began about three years in the past,” he mentioned. “We signed a contract with them 18 months in the past and have been implementing since then. Not solely is it [transferring] to a brand new servicing system, but it surely’s additionally combining two separate firms into one. This isn’t tied to the mortgage market.”

Based on the FDIC, Arvest is the state’s second-largest financial institution, with $26.5 billion in belongings as of June 30. Solely Pine Bluff-chartered Simmons Financial institution ($27.1 billion) has extra.

Arvest originated report mortgage quantity for the third straight 12 months in 2021. The financial institution’s complete mortgage mortgage quantity of greater than $4.77 billion eclipsed $4.68 billion in 2020. The financial institution’s complete mortgage mortgage quantity in 2019 was $2.8 billion.