MetLife puts a premium on high-tech.

• Position: Triangle

Charlotte is known as Bank Town, but the Triangle is making a name for itself in the industry by blending financial services with its trademark--high-technology. The most recent example is New York-based MetLife Inc., which announced in March it would create about 2,600 jobs and invest $125.5 million in the state by the end of 2015. Half of that will be in Charlotte, where it will establish a retail hub, and half to Cary for a global technology and operations center. In return, the U.S.'s largest life-insurance company is eligible for state incentives of $94 million, including an $87.2 million Job Development Investment Grant, the largest since Fidelity Investments got $54.6 million to expand its Research Triangle Park campus in 2006. "This movement, MetLife to the Triangle, as well as Credit Suisse, Fidelity, Deutsche Bank, FNC, is adding to the financial sector in the Triangle to diversify its economic base," says Michael Walden, an economist at N.C. State University in Raleigh. The jobs will he moved from New England and California, which have higher real-estate costs, as the insurer looks to slash annual expenses by S600 million. More than anything, Walden says, the announcement shows that the Triangle and Charlotte have left the other regions of the state far behind. "They're our economic racehorses--nothing else compares."

Notable financial companies that have announced technology operations in the Triangle Headquarters Year Where What Jobs Average salary Credit Zurich 2004 RTP Global-business 400 $72,000 Suisse Group center AG Fidelity Boston 2006 RTP It services and 2,000 58,400 Investments support Credit Zurich 2006 RTP...