Section 23, The Banking Act, 2019

(1) A person shall not function as a financial holdingcompany except granted a licence under section 8 and registered as a Financial Holding Company under section 25. to function (2) Where the Central Bank does not grant an application for mlicence to a financial holding company under section 8 or register a financial holding company under section 25, it shall be unlawful for (a) a person to operate as a financial holding (b) a bank to become a subsidiary of a financial (c) a company to acquire direct or indirect ownership or control of any voting shares of any bank where, after such acquisition, such company will directly or indirectly own or control more than 5% of the voting shares of such bank; (d) a company, including a financial holding company, to acquire all or substantially all of the assets of a bank; or (e) a financial holding company to merge or consolidate with any other financial holding (3) Notwithstanding subsection (2) the Central Bank may exempt a bank or financial holding company from the application of subsection (2) where such bank or financial holding company is subject to supervision and regulation that is satisfactory to the Central Bank, including supervision on a consolidated basis, in its home jurisdiction or another jurisdiction in which it has substantial operations. (4) An exemption under subsection (3) may be made subject to such terms and conditions as the Central Bank considers appropriate. (5) The Central Bank may by statutory instrument make regulations, rules and issue guidelines for the regulation and supervision of financial holding companies.