Branch Banking and Trust: Community Banking Based on Core Values — Can It Survive?

Abstract

Branch Banking & Trust (BB&T) is proud of its heritage as a community bank. BB&T’s success, historically, stems from underwriting personal and real-estate loans for retailers, commercial businesses, and households within local markets. BB&T has always been proud of its ‘small-town USA’ beginnings as a mercantile business in Wilson, North Carolina. As a community bank, close to its clients and customers, it did not rely extensively on sub-prime mortgages that contributed to the recent recession. And yet as the global financial crisis progressed, BB&T cut its dividend, saw its profits drop considerably, and began reworking its business model.