LOS ANGELES — Westlake Financial Services (WFS) announced plans to expand its servicing team in its Dallas production center.

The finance sources plans to hire 85 employees by mid-2016. Recruitment of the new hires began this week. Once trained, they will begin servicing account by mid-October.

“The Dallas location will employ experienced service personnel who will work in conjunction with the servicing team at our U.S. headquarters in Southern California,” stated Amit Shah, senior vice president of servicing. “Through our ongoing effort to provide the highest quality of service to our customers, we are expanding our team in Dallas to support sustainable growth and potentially double the size of our portfolio.”

Ian Anderson, group president of Westlake Financial Holdings, added: “Our continued success is due to our employees. The strong performers we’re going to hire in Dallas will support an important component of our next phase of growth, which is building the Westlake presence in the central U.S.”

Anderson also highlighted the contribution he expects the Dallas office, which opened this past January, to make to Westlake’s burgeoning third-party servicing business. “We’ve achieved success as a third-party servicer with the $178 million Condor portfolio, and we’re confident that we can apply that model to successfully service other finance companies’ portfolios,” he said.