A potential wave of new banks could start after the successful merger between BB&T and SunTrust; regulatory acceptance and markets like Atlanta, North Carolina and Virginia where regional banks overlap could also contribute to more mergers; “I could see some of those folks coming up with the idea of going de novo and swiping up some of their [current] customer base,” Lee Bradley, senior managing director at Community Capital Advisors said to American Banker; there was a trend before the financial crisis but that has since changed and while there is appetite for more it remains to be seen is a wave is really coming. Source.