Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co., announcing a “new strategic direction” for a mortgage empire that was once the largest in US banking, said it will stop funding home loans arranged by outsiders and shrink the portfolio of debts that it services. The retreat from so-called correspondent lending and reduction in servicing caps years of efforts to clean up a …

  Bloomberg US mortgage rates retreated for the first time in three weeks, helping provide a modest lift to refinancing activity. The contract rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage decreased 16 basis points to 6.42% in the week ended January 6, according to Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) data. That helped boost applications for refinancing, which rose 5.1% in the week. …

  Bloomberg Three months after Goldman Sachs Group Inc carved out a new division to house what’s left of its once-ambitious foray on Main Street, it’s giving shareholders a clearer look at those financials. The collection of businesses — including Goldman’s Apple Card — now packaged into the segment dubbed Platform Solutions racked up more than $1.2 billion in pretax …