... new bank in town

Eastern North Carolinians who live along N.C. 11 have been joined in their economic anxiety by residents of Charlotte. There, where Interstates 77 and 85 meet and the hometown industry is banking on a national scale, one of the two biggest banks has been in big trouble.

Now, as the dust begins to settle, Wachovia employees and stockholders, and Charlotte as a whole, have brighter prospects than they did a few days ago.

On Sunday, California-based Wells Fargo won approval from the Federal Reserve for its $12 billion acquisition of Wachovia. The U.S. Treasury Department had cleared the deal earlier, and New York's Citigroup -- remember Citigroup? -- now says it won't block what amounted to a hostile takeover of its own, lower-dollar deal to buy Wachovia. Citi may still sue for damages, but the Wells Fargo-Wachovia "merger," as it's being called, can proceed.

As banking combos go, this seems a good one: the partners have few overlapping operations, which should mean minimal layoffs -- scant consolation for employees who lose their jobs as a result of executive errors. Hard as it is to forfeit a corporate headquarters, Charlotte will nonetheless be Wells Fargo's East Coast base of operations. And the expanded Wells Fargo will have the most branches of any U.S. bank and will rival Charlotte-based Bank of America in deposits.

Certainly that makes the U.S. financial system sounder. Wachovia, which had a decades-long reputation for fiscal sobriety, had gone on a buying binge after merging with First Union; its downfall was the purchase of Golden West Financial, an institution rich with risky home loans. When housing prices collapsed and foreclosures rose, and with global financial markets tanking, Wachovia faced a crisis. According to The Charlotte Observer, Wachovia lost billions of dollars in deposits in recent weeks, $5 billion on Sept. 26 alone, in what amounted to a "silent run" on the bank.

Something had to be done, and the final deal with Wells Fargo does give Wachovia employees and shareholders, along with Charlotte and the state, a down payment on better times.