Wells Fargo & Co., the biggest U.S. home lender, is boosting profits by selling plain-vanilla mortgages after competitors offering exotic products failed or scaled back, the division head of wholesale lending said.

“There was a lot of cross subsidizing, so if your subprime or option ARMs were making 100 basis points you could plow that into your more generic products,” Kathleen Vaughan, who runs Wells Fargo Home Mortgage’s network of independent brokers, said Tuesday in an interview at a Mortgage Bankers Association conference in San Diego.

“Since those products have gone away there is a much more level playing field; we’re paid for the risk and there’s a lot less competition.”

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