Citigroup Selling Servicing Rights as Banks Shrink Role

The U.S. mortgage market’s largest lenders are pulling back amid looming regulations and a drop in refinancing that fueled record profits last year.

Citigroup Inc., the third-biggest U.S. bank, is selling mortgage-servicing rights on $63 billion of loans, or about 21 percent of its total contracts at midyear, according to two people briefed on the matter, who asked not to be identified because the sale is private. Wells Fargo & Co., the largest home lender, began marketing rights on $41 billion of government-backed home loans in September.