Ken Logan, an industry veteran of over 35 years, including 12 years at Wells Fargo and most recently, Signature Bank, has joined Huntington as senior managing director.

Besides providing warehouse lending, the unit will provide financing on mortgage servicing rights to independent mortgage bankers, financial institutions and real estate investment trusts among other owners of mortgage assets that want to monetize their investment, Logan said in an interview.

"It's a suite of services that they want and need," he explained.

Huntington already had five "mortgage-centric" activities in the bank, Logan said. For example, in May, the bank added a team headed by Kathy Kanno Wood (who had been a colleague of Logan's at Wells Fargo) for specialized cash and treasury management needs of mortgage servicers and other real estate companies.

Huntington also provides capital markets, fund finance and other products and services to mortgage business participants. The bank also participates in the correspondent lending channel.

The part they didn't have was providing mortgage asset financing, "so this is rounding out a little bit or adding another element" to the bank's business, Logan said.

Part of the opportunity for Huntington is to step in where other banks are having balance sheet and/or capital constraints as rules evolve, especially with the discussions around Basel III and its impact on mortgage activities.

"We have built a broad set of best-in-class capabilities to serve mortgage originators and servicers backed by highly experienced leaders who uniquely understand clients' needs," said Tizu Menelik, Huntington's executive managing director of corporate, specialty and government banking, in a press release.