MetLife to Sell MSR Portfolio to JPMorgan Chase

MetLife (MET) is selling its mortgage servicing portfolio to JPMorgan Chase (JPM).

The $70 billion portfolio would increase JPMorgan's servicing business by roughly 5%, the companies said Friday. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The deal is one of a series of steps by MetLife to leave the retail banking business, which represented 2% of its earnings last year.

"Since that time, MetLife has entered into agreements to sell MetLife Bank's deposit business to GE Capital, sold the bank's warehouse finance business to EverBank (EVER), sold the bank's reverse mortgage servicing rights to Nationstar and ceased writing residential mortgages," Jim Rose, MetLife Bank's president, said in a news release.

"The acquisition of this high-quality portfolio reflects our strategy to strengthen and grow our servicing business," Eric Schuppenhauer, JPMorgan's head of mortgage servicing, added in a news release. "We will be able to provide our full range of products and services to an additional 350,000 individuals and families. We expect that many of these customers will take advantage of historically low interest rates by refinancing."

MetLife is in the process of selling roughly $7 billion in deposits to General Electric's (GE) consumer-lending arm. The deal took on more urgency in March after MetLife became one of four deposit-taking institutions to fail a Federal Reserve stress test.

In October, MetLife won another three months to tell the Fed about its capital plans while the company tries to obtain regulatory approval for the deal with GE.

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