The news from last week that BB&T and SunTrust would merge provoked questions immediately of how that might affect Robeson County, where BB&T, the grandchild of the Bank of Lumberton, still has a large footprint.

The $66 billion merger, which will create the nation’s sixth largest bank, is being billed as a joining of two equals. In truth, BB&T is the larger bank, yet the decision already has been made to give the new bank a new name. So expect new signs to be erected at the five BB&T branches across Robeson County, which currently is not served by SunTrust.

Perhaps a bit of a history lesson is in order.

In 1897, Angus MacLean, a Lumberton resident who would later become governor of the state, and Judge Thomas A. McNeill, with an initial investment of $15,000, established the Bank of Lumberton. MacLean’s son, the late Hector MacLean, easily one of the most influential figures in our county’s history, would later become president of the bank that would grow into what became known as Southern National Bank.

It was announced in 1995 that Southern National would merge with BB&T and the new bank would be headquartered in Winston-Salem. Hector MacLean, as the story goes, was able to secure as part of the deal a commitment from BB&T to maintain a heavy presence in Lumberton and Robeson County, which likely explains why there is a call center on Fayetteville Road that employs hundreds of people.

But Lumberton and Robeson County suffered mightily from that merger because of a “brain drain,” the relocation of many of Southern National’s top executives, people who were civic leaders in our community, to the corporate office in Winston-Salem.

In late 2017, the news locally was joyful because BB&T announced, as a response to a federal tax cut for corporations, that it would raise its minimum wages from $12 to $15 an hour, providing a significant pay hike to many of those working at the call center and the local BB&T branches, making their lives easier and providing octane for the local economy.

The news now, however, is much more mixed, and the question becomes: Will the commitment that MacLean was able to secure survive a second merger? The local bank branches, we believe, are likely safe. But what about those jobs at the call center?

We know that BB&T recently made a substantial investment in Whiteville, and that might not bode well here locally. Mergers are intended to help those involved stand sturdier against competition, and one of the ways that is achieved is by making the new entity leaner and meaner by consolidating services that are duplicated. Locally, the fear would be that the call center becomes another vacant building on an important piece of real estate.

We don’t know — and we aren’t convinced that anyone knows, including the leadership of the bank that will emerge from the merger — what will happen with those jobs at the call center, but we certainly hope that the new bank doesn’t deal a community so important to its history an economic kick in the shin.

Those who make such weighty decisions are not bound by sentimentalism, but by the bottom line. On that, you can bank.