U.S. Fed approves merger between BB&T, SunTrust Banks (updated)

Beacon Financial

19/11/2019 22:28

(Adds more context on deposit divestment, statement)
    WASHINGTON, Nov 19 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve said
on Tuesday it approved a merger between BB&T Corp  BBT.N  and
SunTrust Banks Inc  STI.N , sealing the biggest tie-up of banks
since the 2007-2009 global financial crisis.
    Analysts have said such a tie-up has been made possible by
regulatory easing under the administration of President Donald
Trump, which has encouraged banking regulators to take a more
relaxed approach to approving mergers, bank applications and
enforcement of post-crisis rules.
    The Fed said its approval was conditioned on several
actions, including that BB&T must divest 30 branches and more
than $2.4 billion in deposits to mitigate the competitive
effects of the merger. 
    SunTrust must also satisfy the terms of a newly-issued
consent order after the Fed found it had misled certain business
customers regarding the operation and billing for some products.
    In a statement, the companies said they were pleased to have
received regulatory approval.

 (Reporting by Katanga Johnson
Editing by Chris Reese and Tom Brown)
 ((Katanga.Johnson@thomsonreuters.com; 202-898-8403; Reuters
Messaging: Katanga.Johnson.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))