Mid-Missouri to close mortgage company

Loan processors at Mid-Missouri Bank will take on the mortgage lending services previously provided at Mid-Missouri Mortgage Co. The mortgage division will close after it completes its pending loans and shifts its existing loans to the bank, according to Vice President and Director of Human Resources Thane Kifer.

“It’s just a more efficient way for us to provide this product,” Kifer said.

Kifer also said that the closure is not related to a national rising trend of mortgage fraud or to an ongoing investigation into five former Mid-Missouri Bank employees. Joplin branch president Scott Rosenthal and Joplin loan officers Chris Couch, Frank McReynolds, Tim Langston and Kay Muskrat were fired in April and May, kicking off an investigation that involves the Missouri Division of Finance, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the FBI and the bank’s bonding company.

Mid-Missouri Mortgage Co. holds offices in Springfield at 1520 E. Primrose St. and employed 16 before the restructuring began. Three loan officers have been let go, and the remaining 13 will be laid off after the transition is complete, Kifer said.

The building on Primrose will stay with Mid-Missouri. Kifer said some core bank functions will move there after the closure, though it will not become a bank branch.

See SBJ’s July 23 issue for more Mid-Missouri Bancshares news.