Crédit Agricole's €19.9bn ($21.2bn) agreed offer for Crédit Lyonnais was approved Thursday night by the Comité des Etablissements de Crédit et des Enterprises d'Investissement (CECEI), the French banking regulator.

The regulator concluded that the merger would not result in any competition issues in corporate or investment banking but imposed a number of conditions on the merged retail banking operation, which would have a 30% share of the domestic market.