(Bloomberg) — Ally Financial Inc. will cut jobs, end mortgage originations and consider strategic alternatives for its credit-card business as borrowers have struggled to pay down costly debt.

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The Detroit-based company will cut less than 5% of its workforce, an Ally spokesperson said in an email to Bloomberg News. The firm had about 11,100 employees as of the end of 2023, with a significant portion of its workforce in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“As we continue to right-size our company, we made the difficult decision to selectively reduce our workforce in some areas, while continuing to hire in our other areas of our business,” spokesperson Peter Gilchrist said in the email. The cuts aren’t specific to one line of business or location, he said, and mortgage originations will stop this quarter.

Ally has reported intensifying credit challenges across its divisions, including its better-known auto-lending business. The cost of debt has become more expensive for US consumers amid higher interest rates. Chief Financial Officer Russ Hutchinson pointed in September to a higher cost of living partly caused by inflation as causing additional pain for indebted consumers. He said at the time that Ally was considering whether to increase the reserves needed to cover souring loans.

The company has tightened its criteria for who can qualify for an auto loan, expressing optimism that those actions could curtail mounting charge-offs. When lenders reported their third-quarter earnings, Ally was one of the few with such a pessimistic credit outlook.

Ally shares rose 1.1% to $36.17 at 11:42 a.m. in New York, and are up 4.2% over the past 12 months.

“We remain confident in our long-term strategy and our ability to deliver compelling returns given the strong underlying trends in our core businesses,” Gilchrist said. “We’ll continue to be diligent in our expense management going forward.”

The Charlotte Observer first reported the job cuts, and Bloomberg said in November that Ally was exploring a sale of its credit-card arm.

(Updates with additional details on timing, credit quality starting in third paragraph.)

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