Singapore's Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp is set to acquire Hong Kong-based Wing Hang Bank, in a deal worth close to $5 billion, a report says.

Singapore's Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp, parent of Bank of Singapore, is set to acquire Hong Kong-based Wing Hang Bank, in a deal worth HK$38.43 billion ($4.6 billion).

Discussions between the banks began last year, but the deal was extended twice as OCBC and Wing Hang Bank tried to come to an agreement over the price. In a statement, OCBC said it has enough financial resources to satisfy the full cash acceptance of the offer, through its own internal cash and cash-equivalent resources and/or a committed loan facility.

OCBC is currently trying to extend outside of its core markets in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. It will also provide the bank with a much sought after gateway into the Greater China region, as well as a foothold in Macau. Today, the bank's China business has 16 branches and sub-branches in the country. Its private banking subsidiary, Bank of Singapore, has a branch in Hong Kong.

The proposed value is around 1.77 times WHB's consolidated net book value as at 31 December 2013. Wing Hang Bank Group had total assets of over HK$214.3 billion ($27.6 billion). The transaction is still subject to regulatory approvals and other pre-conditions. OCBC expects the acquisition to be accretive to its earnings per share and return on equity by 2017. It also said that it will retain WHB's management team and staff with no redundancies in the short term, and will supplement the existing management team with experts in areas such as wealth management and treasury. 

The deal provides a further instance of M&A activity in the global banking market. A little over a week ago, French banking group Societe Generale announced the sale of its Asia private bank to DBS, the Singapore-headquartered group and rival to OCBC.