(a) Upon compliance with the requirements of this chapter one or more institutions and one or more national banks, Federal savings banks and interstate banks, without regard to whether any such interstate bank maintains branches in this Commonwealth at the time of a merger or consolidation, may merge or consolidate into a national bank or Federal savings bank and, with the approval by the department, may merge with or into an institution or consolidate into a new institution or merge a nonbank subsidiary into an institution, provided that the institution can engage in activities conducted by the subsidiary as principal, except that a trust company may enter into a merger or consolidation only with another trust company, a bank and trust company, a national bank or a Federal savings bank which has fiduciary powers or a stock savings bank under section 1609.¹

(b) The authority of an institution to merge or consolidate into a national bank shall be subject to the condition that at the time of the transaction the laws of the United States shall authorize a national bank located in this Commonwealth, without approval by the Comptroller of the Currency of the United States, to merge or consolidate into an institution under limitations and conditions no more restrictive than those contained in this chapter with respect to the merger or consolidation of an institution into a national bank.