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Wells Fargo, the American multinational financial services company, has announced that it has laid off hundreds of mortgage bankers in a recent round of cuts. This move is part of the bank’s recent strategic shift, under CEO Charlie Scharf, where the focus is now on serving existing customers and minority communities, rather than maximizing its share of the US mortgage market, which it once dominated. The decision to pull back from parts of the US mortgage market comes after sharply higher interest rates led to a collapse in loan volumes, forcing Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and other firms to cut thousands of mortgage positions in the past year.

The recent layoffs included mortgage bankers and home loan consultants who are compensated mostly on sales volume, and bankers who operated in areas outside of the bank’s branch footprint and who therefore did not fit in the new strategy of catering to existing customers. This included bankers across the Midwest and the East Coast. The bank has communicated with affected employees, provided severance and career guidance, and tried to retain as many workers as possible.

While this latest round of cuts wasn’t based on employees’ performance, Wells Fargo has also been cutting mortgage workers who don’t meet minimum standards of production. In areas with expensive housing, that could be a minimum of at least $10 million worth of loans over the past 12 months. Last month, the bank said that mortgage volumes continued to shrink in the fourth quarter, falling 70% to $14.6 billion.

Despite the layoffs, Wells Fargo will continue to serve customers “in any market in the United States” through its centralized sales channel. The bank has also reiterated its rationale for the mortgage retrenchment, and recruiters have been swarming top performers in the hopes of poaching them.