Home, a loan make BB&T banker move.

• Position: Former Banking and Trust Co. city executive Barbara Huffman

Charlotte banker Barbara Huffman says her mother taught her "what is morally and ethically right." She learned enough to satisfy Mom but not Branch Banking & Trust Co. Huffman, 38, a Hickory native and UNC Chapel Hill graduate, had been a fast riser at BB&T, climbing to city executive for Charlotte. "She was well-regarded," says Tony Plath, director of the Center for Banking Studies at UNC Charlotte.

But she was fired in January for accepting a bridge loan from her best friend, who was a bank customer. Within two months, she landed a job with Raleigh-based SouthTrust Bank of North Carolina as head of its commercial lending and branches in Mecklenburg County. But the interim, she says, "was like being stripped of everything you are."

Trouble started last fall after she bought a new house. Her friend, a real-estate agent whom she declines to name, offered her a bridge loan. "I had the loan for four weeks," she says. When she mentioned it to her supervisor, the ax fell. Her friend was a depositor, and BB&T's code of ethics, revised last year, prohibits personal business with customers. "They said, 'A rule is a rule. We rolled this code of ethics out, you signed it.' They said, 'We take no prisoners.'" Winston-Salem-based Southern National Corp., BB&T's parent, declined comment.

Huffman's attitude...