Fed up with what it calls overly restrictive state laws, BB&T Corp. is moving its bank card, debit card and merchant services businesses from North Carolina, its home state, to Georgia.
The $27.2 billion-asset company said last week that it will base all card operations in Columbus, Ga.
BB&T has applied for state and federal permission and hopes to designate Georgia as the state of issuance for its card business by the end of the third quarter of 1998, said Scott Qualls, senior vice president and manager of the revolving credit department.
The Winston-Salem company has signed a multiyear card processing contract with Columbus-based Total System Services Inc. The contract involves about one million card accounts.
Total System won the processing contract away from First Data Resources in Omaha.
Mr. Qualls said BB&T will not move or fire 125 employees who work in the card businesses in Wilson, N.C., but it does plan to hire additional people in Georgia to handle service and other card-related responsibilities.
A bank's multistate credit card practices are regulated by the state in which the business is based, so the designated state of issuance is an important factor in its profitability.
BB&T is one of many banking companies in North Carolina that have long lobbied the state to change some of the restrictions it places on card issuers.
Indeed BB&T is one of the last large North Carolina financial concerns to keep its credit card business in the state. NationsBank Corp. bases its credit card subsidiary in Delaware, and First Union Corp. operates its credit card business out of Augusta, Ga.
Some of the restrictions considered most onerous by bankers are North Carolina's 18% cap on interest rates, a $24 cap on annual fees, and a mandatory 25-day grace period in which interest cannot be assessed against cardholders.
Thad Woodard, president of the North Carolina Bankers Association, said he was dismayed to hear BB&T had decided to move its credit card operation. But he was not surprised.
"We hate to keep losing banks' credit card businesses to other states," he said.
