Individual Loan Officer Applications Fall for the First Time Since 2011

NMLS has reported that 120,142 individuals are now licensed by the states as mortgage loan originators (MLOs) as are 16,688 companies.  NMLS's Fourth Quarter report includes tallies on both state licensed or registered loan originators and those licensed by federal government agencies.

The 16,688 companies which have 18,819 branches hold a total of 33,872 licenses.  These licenses include separate licenses required for other trade names or for different authorities (i.e. Lender and Broker) required in some states.  Federal licenses are held by 124 of the state licensed companies. Individual licensees hold 258,948 licenses and 5,530 hold both state licenses and federal registration.

In the fourth quarter applications for licensing/registration were submitted by 1,082 companies, 3,021 branches, and 20,689 individuals.  Applications were approved for 837 companies, 2,587 branches, and 16,653 individuals.  Once state agencies finished transitioning company and MLO licenses into the NMLS system in mid 2011 the quarterly level of new company applications has remained relatively static at around 1,100 to 1,200.  Individual MLO applications however have increased fairly steadily from a low of about 14,000 in the third quarter of 2011 to the present level, although applications in Q4 were down slightly from those in Q3.

During the quarter there were 19 company, 12 branch, and 8 MLO licenses revoked.  Eleven of the company licenses and all of the branch licenses were in California as were four of the MLO licenses that were revoked. 

At the end of the fourth quarter there were 11,052 institutions holding federal registration, an increase of 1.3 percent from the third quarter.  MLO registrations totaled 399,286, an increase of 1.2 percent.  The largest increases in individual licenses were in Montana, up 5.1 percent and the District of Columbia, +3.7 percent.  The largest declines were in Arizona, down 3.7 percent and New Hampshire which declined 2.9 percent.

The largest number of federal registrations, 232,142, is through the Office of Comptroller of the Currency with the next highest number, 74,868, registered with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.