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For 119 years, Wachovia’s traditions of customer service and financial stability meant to Southern banking what sweet tea with barbecue means to Southern cuisine.

And they made the bank a national power.

When Citibank takes over later this year, however, it will lose that Southern accent and its North Carolina roots. That could send hundreds of customers with billions of dollars right into the waiting arms of community banks right around the corner.

“We just lost the legacy brand name in Southeast banking, and we lost it to a New York bank,” said Tony Plath, an associate professor of finance at UNC-Charlotte. “So what’s going to happen to all that (family) trust money? BB&T and First Citizens and the community banks — those guys are just licking their chops for when those signs come down.”

Generations of wealthy and not-so-wealthy North Carolina families trusted the bank for everything from million-dollar trust funds to college savings accounts. But culture has a lot to do with comfort, Plath said.

“There are a lot of Southerners who are not going to bank with a Yankee bank,” he said.

Wachovia could lose 15 percent of its deposits, Plath said.

Bob Braswell, a conservative Greensboro banker, is not exactly licking his chops, but in his soft-spoken way he believes he has prepared Carolina Bank to be ready for Wachovia customers who want a warmer place to store their money and take out loans.

“There’s a lot of people who don’t know how to spell Citibank and don’t know them,” said Braswell, the president and chief executive officer of Carolina Bank. “For those who want to feel like they know their bank, know their bankers, a community bank is clearly the first choice in my opinion.”

Braswell, Plath and others say community banks are strong for several reasons:

• They lend money carefully from deposits and rarely borrow money on the now-impaired open markets;
• Because they are small — Carolina Bank has about $556 million in deposits, NewBridge Bank about $2 billion — they can remain focused on local customers by name and banking needs;
• They get more scrutiny from North Carolina regulators than federal banks.

“We have not changed,” Braswell said. “The market changed, but we haven’t and the market has now come to us. I wish we were smart enough to have anticipated it. It’s just Banking 101.”

Customers of bigger banks are looking closely at smaller banks before they move, however, said Pressley A. Ridgill, president and chief executive officer of Greensboro’s NewBridge Bank.

“People actually come to us and want to know how are we reacting with our customers,” Ridgill said. “They don’t want to change and be treated the same way.”

Customers and small businesses especially want a bank that understands their goals, Ridgill said.

“We will look for the opportunities that we can to help our own company,” Ridgill said. “People bank with bankers, not banks.”

Credit unions, those not-for-profit organizations offering most of the services banks offer, will also benefit from Wachovia’s buyout.

With $28 billion on deposit from 3 million members in North Carolina, these institutions make conservative mortgage and consumer loans, said Jeff Hardin, director of communications for the N.C. Credit Union League in Greensboro.

The biggest winner, though, is likely to be Winston-Salem’s BB&T, a “North Carolina legacy bank” with strong traditions, Plath said.

“All they’ve got to do is hold their hands out and the deposits are going to roll into the bank,” he said.

His advice is simple: “Don’t screw this up. You’re never going to get another chance like this one.”

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com