RALEIGH, (AP) - North Carolina's longtime banking commissioner Joseph Smith Jr. is leaving his job this week to take over as monitor of the $25 billion settlement between big banks and state attorneys general over widespread mortgage abuses.

Smith's office said Tuesday he will resign his state post Thursday. He'll be succeeded at least temporarily by his deputy Ray Grace, who's been at the state banking commission for more than 35 years.

Smith plans to stay in Raleigh during the three years he'll serve as monitor of the settlement announced last week between 49 of the country's state attorneys general and the nation's five largest mortgage servicers including Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

The settlement has been labeled the largest involving a single industry since a 1998 multistate tobacco deal