The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have approved the merger of Access Bank Plc and Diamond Bank Plc.

This followed the recent approval of the merger by shareholders of both banks at a meeting specially convened by the order of the Federal High Court (FHC).

The CBN and the SEC had earlier granted “approval–in-principle”, a no-objection approval, to the merger.

With the final approval of the scheme, the banks will now submit the scheme of merger to the FHC for its judicial sanction, which seals the merger.

Under the merger terms, Diamond Bank will transfer all its assets, liabilities and undertakings to Access Bank and the entire issued share capital of Diamond Bank shall be cancelled and Diamond Bank shall be dissolved without being wound up.

In exchange, Diamond Bank’s shareholders shall receive a cash consideration of N1 per share and two ordinary shares of the enlarged Access Bank for every seven ordinary shares of Diamond Bank held as at the effective date.

Access Bank will be the post-merger entity with its Group Managing Director, Herbert Wigwe, continuing to lead the post-merger management as chief executive.

The business combination is expected to leapfrog post-merger Access Bank as Nigeria’s largest bank by total assets and one of Africa’s largest retail banks.

The merger is expected to form a leading Tier 1 Nigerian bank and the largest bank in Africa by number of customers, spanning three continents, 12 countries, 3,100 Automated Teller Machine (ATM), more than 33,000 Point of Sales (PoS) terminals, 27 million clients and more than 10 million mobile customers.