In a family way.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: John Stedman Jr., founder of Scottish Bank

Following in his father's and his grandfather's footsteps, John Stedman Jr. goes out on his own to start a bank.

John Stedman Jr. lays the old scrapbook carefully on a table in his 28th-floor office in downtown Charlotte and opens it to another era. In yellowed newspaper clippings, children hand deposits to patient tellers, housewives praise Christmas Club accounts, and advertisements feature a stonefaced, tartan-togged highlander, the symbol Stedman's grandfather created in 1939 for his new Scottish Bank. Flip ahead a few pages and paler, less-brittle clippings recall Republic Bank & Trust, which his father founded in 1972.

When you are the third generation to start a bank, there are ghosts galore to grapple. "Sure, there's frustration on my part," Stedman, 36, says. "One of the challenges I've faced is trying to get people to see me for who I am, to give me some credit. I've been in banking 14 years. It's all I know. But I guarantee you it isn't a matter of trying to live up to some standard that had already been created for me."

His Charlotte-based Scottish Bank, bearing the same name as his grandfather's and awaiting its charter, is part of an unprecedented flurry of new-bank activity in North Carolina. By next May, 11 banks will have opened in a year's span. Behind each is an entrepreneur who insists that the industry's consolidation has created a void a new community bank needs to fill. For many, that consolidation was bringing their career paths to a dead end. But none of them have as much to prove, no matter how much he tries to downplay it, as Stedman.

"In the South, you have a tradition of financial families," says Tony Plath, director of UNC Charlotte Center for Banking Studies. "That's how you prove yourself in the Southern business world. Real men start banks."

Though there's little about his background, other than his bloodline, to show he was born to run a bank, Stedman is well on his way. "I don't know much about John," says a potential competitor, Keith Brunnemer, chairman of year-old First Commerce Bank in Charlotte, "but I know he's got an impressive name and board behind him." That board includes a former congressman and several top Charlotte CEOs.

Fueling startups like Stedman's is a backlash against big banks gobbling up smaller ones. Plath calls it a yearning for "Norman Rockwell banks," where tellers know customer names. State banking regulator Ray Grace, who as an examiner monitored John Stedman Sr.'s bank 25 years ago, agrees: "Large banks are trying to push customers into automated banking, but a large segment of them still want to deal with real people."

Stedman plans to capitalize on this with gimmicks such as steps so kids can reach teller windows, and he will seek a rounded customer base, including seniors, families and small businesses. He has even revived as an icon, the same tam-hatted Scotsman, Sagacious McThrift, his grandfather used. He plans some modern touches, too, such as 24-hour telephone access and Internet banking.

Even his decision to call his startup Scottish Bank, an anachronism in an age of homogenous names, is a subtle, and for him, uncharacteristic in-your-face dig at his big rivals. "Everybody is 'First' this or 'Nations' that. Why not pick a name that means something?" He considered about 20 names before settling on the one his grandfather used. "From a sentimental standpoint, it was a neat way to bring it back. But it also conveys the image of...