JP Morgan Chase recently announced in January that they would no longer participate in wholesale operations, where loan funding is coordinated through brokers. Instead, they will generate loans through their own offices. This news was followed by Citigroup reporting that they were going to downsize on working with mortgage brokers as well, choosing to only work with 1,000 instead of their previous number of 10,000. According to Alan Rosenbaum, the founder of GuardHill Financial, a NYC brokerage firm, the actions of those two banks has helped lower the percentage of mortgage broker involvement in loans, which was at a previous 80% and has now dropped to 70%. Rosenbaum stated that, "The banks want to get rid of mortgage professionals to reduce competition,...It's not good for consumers." Less broker involvement means that there is less competition in the market and less room to shop for a better deal, meaning that home loans are going to get more expensive.

Amidst the controversy in the market regarding these occurrences, an internal Chase memo, stated that "Our customers are best served when a mortgage officer works directly with them, explains our products clearly and then helps them carefully evaluate the choices in light of their personal financial situation,". Brokers counteracted by saying that they are a better choice for consumers as they filter through many lender offers and pick the best deals for their clients, helping to keep rates down as lenders have to make their loans more appealing to the customer. Borrowers going through banks, only get the terms available from the bank, thus the only way for a consumer to find the best deal would be to go from bank to bank, bank shopping. The president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, Marc Savitt, feels that the banks think they can make more profit by cutting out the middleman/broker, however according to Savitt it would actually be less profitable as loan officers would have to wait for consumers to come to them instead of having a mortgage broker present them with clients. As for the accusation that the banks want to cut out the middleman, bank branches have had a surprising growth spurt over the last five years; Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for Chase, reported that their previous branch total five years ago was 600 which has now sprouted to 5,000.

In contrary to the above, the president of the Mortgage Bankers Association, John Courson, doesn't feel that this will have a very negative affect on brokers, "Every lender has its own business model,...Chase made a decision to only lend through its personnel, [but other large lenders] will still need loan production. Mortgage brokers will continue to be an important part of the mortgage channel." Hope does remain for brokers as no other large banks, such as Bank of America or Wells Fargo, have followed in Chase and Citi´s footsteps. Savitt reported that "[These] lenders may be looking at this as an opportunity,...They said they were committed to the broker channel and would expand it,".