WASHINGTON - BankAmerica Corp. won approval Tuesday from the Federal Reserve Board to acquire HonFed Bank of Honolulu.
With its purchase of the $2.6 billion-asset thrift, San Francisco-based BankAmerica will enter its 10th state.
BankAmerica spokesman Peter Magnani said he did not know when the HonFed acquisition would be complete. The deal, announced last summer, was slowed by BankAmerica's merger with Security Pacific.
HonFed's 29 offices will become branches of Bank of America Federal Savings Bank, a Portland, Ore., a unit of $202 billion-asset BankAmerica.
The deal is unaffected by a current controversy in Congress over an Office of Thrift Supervision regulation that permits interstate branching by healthy S&Ls.
When BankAmerica bought the failed Benj. Franklin Savings and Loan Association of Oregon in 1990, the OTS said BankAmerica could use Franklin's branching rights to enter Hawaii.
Because BankAmerica and HonFed have no overlapping markets, the Fed had no concerns about diminished competition.
BankAmerica has two years to divest itself to HonFed subsidiaries that conduct businesses deemed off limits.
