Choosing limited expansion
In the 1980s, at a time when other banks were diversifying, Medlin steered Wachovia in a more conservative direction, focusing on traditional banking and proceeding cautiously with overseas expansion. As he considers this expansion, he discusses the rise of Wachovia after the Civil War and the bank's guiding tenets.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with John Medlin, May 24, 1999. Interview I-0076. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
At a time when some of the others
were heading in these diverse directions we went to hell bent for
leather on basic banking. Our concerns then were the marriage of
technology and personal service. How we deal with our business with
rampant inflation and high interest rates that are going up and down.
Interest rates had not reached their peak. They actually didn't reach
their peak until 1982. We had a terrible recession and high money rates
to face in the early '80s, which is what really drove deregulation
finally in the political scene with the Garn-St. Germain Deregulation
Act in Washington and some of those things. So we were on a strategic
track that was really intent on our internal growth of our business. We
couldn't go across state lines. We did open offices
overseas. I think we went-I can't remember the exact years but
we went to, we had an office in Zurich, Switzerland. We put
check-clearing facilities, we put an office in New York City and an Edge
Act office-
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
- JOSEPH MOSNIER:
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Okay this is side B of the first cassette with Mr. Medlin.
- JOHN MEDLIN:
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We opened an office in New York City, which was permitted under the Edge
Act to clear international transactions. We opened check clearing
facilities in Dallas and Atlanta before we were able to go there
otherwise and tried to pierce the veil of regulation wherever it was
possible to do so legally and expand our business nationally and
internationally. But being cautious with the overseas part of it.
Witness what happened in the early '80s with the less developed
countries lending, and we were involved in that but we weren't involved
to the point that it was terribly troublesome. We had covered North
Carolina pretty fully. Wachovia, you have to go back a little bit here
and point out that Wachovia was founded in 1879. Had its first branch
outside of Winston-Salem in 1902 in High Point; in 1903 in Asheboro and
Salisbury; 1920s in Raleigh; 1930s in Charlotte. Then after World War
Two in the '50s, Wilmington, Burlington, a number of other cities,
Goldsboro. Then in the 1970s it pretty much completed the covering of
the state, from Andrews in the far West to Elizabeth City in the far
East. So there wasn't much place to go in North Carolina. So we were
basically intent on using our present North Carolina banks for full
service banking and going outside internationally and nationally and
cash management and check clearing and those kinds of things where we
could have permissible on the ground facilities elsewhere. We eventually
put an office in Chicago somewhere along the way. Anyway, this was our
growth. We knew that, we thought that somewhere along the way we'd have
a chance to do what we did is to go into other states, but we needed to
be good at what we were already doing to be ready for that. Our
competition, we really didn't, North Carolina, one thing that Wachovia
can take credit for is really spawning statewide banking in North
Carolina. We had no restrictions since the Civil War. Communities wanted
you to come and open a bank. There was no real restriction. The state
was still so poor after the Depression and even after World War Two that
you had no trouble being kept out anywhere. We really, I think inspired
what was then North Carolina National Bank in 1970, in 1960, which was a
merger of American Commercial Bank in Charlotte and Security Bank in
Greensboro with an office in Raleigh. We were something of an
inspiration behind First Union, which was a major Asheville bank, and
Charlotte bank that got together and began to have some competition. We
have had the experience of statewide banking now for almost a hundred
years, ninety-eight, ninety-nine and others for only forty years. Size
has never been our goal. Excellence and quality is
our goal. You put your blinders on and hope you've read the competitive
market place well and try to do the best you can with what you're
permitted to do and where you're permitted to do it. To be able to look
back on what you have done for these constituencies, shareholders.
Shareholders don't really care about how big you are. They care about
what happens to their stock. Customers don't care about how big you are;
they care about the service that you give them. The employees don't care
about how big you are as long as they have a good job and growth
opportunities and the public interests often cares that you are too big
or thinks may have too much economic power and concentration of
resources and all that.