Bank of America cuts 202 mortgage jobs in Virginia

Bank of America continues to eliminate jobs in its mortgage division that works with troubled borrowers.

In its latest round of cuts, the Charlotte-based lender confirmed this week it is eliminating 202 jobs in Virginia. No Charlotte-area jobs will be affected by the cuts in Norfolk, a Bank of America spokesperson told me.

The Virginia layoffs are in the bank's Legacy Assets and Servicing operation, which was created in 2011 and handles mortgages that borrowers are struggling to pay. Many of the mortgages that LAS has serviced were acquired by Bank of America in its 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp.

CEO Brian Moynihan said mortgage staffing was cut last year.

As the economy has improved and people have done a better job of paying their mortgages, Bank of America has been cutting its LAS staffing.

"The number of delinquent mortgage loans we service has decreased to one-seventh of their peak levels," the bank told me in an emailed response. "Due to the dramatically lower demand for these specialized services, we are reducing the size of the operations."

Affected employees are eligible for open positions at the bank, the emailed response says.

In the fourth quarter, the bank reduced its LAS headcount by roughly 1,000 from the third quarter, CEO Brian Moynihan said last month.

The cuts to LAS jobs have also come as Bank of America looks to slash the still-high costs in that operation. Those expenses have been a drag on the bank's earnings.

Last month, the bank's chief financial officer, Bruce Thompson, said the bank is seeking to lower its quarterly LAS costs, excluding litigation expenses, to $800 million by the end of this year, from $1.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014.

Past LAS job cuts have impacted the Charlotte area, although the bank will not disclose how many LAS cuts there have been in Charlotte.