Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Toronto-Dominion Bank have joined the North American bank consolidation wave with a C$22.7 billion merger, the second-largest corporate marriage in Canadian history.

It is the second big bank merger in recent months in Canada and it is likely to further anger the federal government, which is refusing to give its blessing to mergers among the big banks until it completes a parliamentary study on the industry.

CIBC will pay C$22.7 billion ($15.9 billion) in stock for TD Bank, creating a combined bank with a market capitalisation of C$45.8 billion ($31.9 billion) as of the close of trading on Thursday. This would make it the 10th largest bank in North America.

The merged bank will have total assets of C$460 billion, some 74,000 employees and more than 10 million customers worldwide, the two banks said.