The top financial regulator gave its preliminary approval Wednesday for the merger of Hana Bank and Korea Exchange Bank, the two banks affiliated with Hana Financial Group. The final approval will be decided in the last week of August.



“The preliminary approval decision was made swiftly as the labor and management had reached an agreement on the merger,” said an official of the Financial Services Commission.

Hana Financial will hold an extraordinary shareholders meeting in early August, after which it will file for the FSC’s final approval of the merger, in time to kick off the merged bank on Sept. 1, officials said.

The new bank will at once become the nation’s largest bank with estimated assets of 290 trillion won ($252 billion), beating Shinhan Bank, KB Kookmin Bank and Woori Bank.

Since last year, the nation’s third-largest banking group has been struggling to merge KEB, which it had required from U.S. buyout firm Lone Star back in 2012, to flagship Hana Bank. KEB unionists had strongly opposed the move, citing the group’s earlier pledge to keep the two banks separated until 2017.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)