International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) this morning is set to announce its purchase of a major mortgage servicer, Wilshire Credit Corp., from Bank of America, sources familiar with the matter told DS News over the weekend.

Details of the rumored deal are scant, but it would mark a major addition to IBM’s information empire, the sources said. The firm is looking to have a presence in the mortgage market, where technology-based service providers have been under increasing pressure to accommodate servicers’ rising modification and foreclosure volumes.

The Beaverton, Oregon-based Wilshire may be in an ideal position to help IBM make a splash in the mortgage business. The firm is a top-rated servicer of subprime and defaulted loans with good workout capabilities and high growth potential, the sources said. Those virtues would give IBM a leg up as U.S. employment figures worsen and foreclosures and defaults in the residential mortgage sector continue to rise. The sale would have a considerable upside for the beleaguered Bank of America, as well.

The bank acquired Wilshire as part of its deal last year to buy investment bank Merrill Lynch & Co. But the Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America also bought Countrywide Financial last year as part of the government’s financial-system bailout, and in the process became the nation’s largest mortgage servicer.

The complexity of that job has been daunting, and while BOA officials recently told reporters that Countrywide’s loans have been largely streamlined into the bank’s automated servicing process, Wilshire’s operations had not yet progress to that point.

As DS News has previously reported, Bank of America’s board has a lot more than mortgage servicing operations on its mind. In addition to unwinding $45 billion in obligations to the federal government as a result of its bailout last year, the bank has been distracted by legal issues surrounding its lame-duck chief executive officer, Ken Lewis.