In determining whether to approve the application, the director, or the director's designee, shall consider whether the purchase, assumption, and operation is consistent with the safety and soundness of, and the convenience and advantage of the communities served by, each financial institution that is a party to the agreement. The procedures for conducting hearings by the director, or the director's designee, and the rights of appeal from decisions of the director, or the director's designee, shall be governed by the applicable provisions of this title. If the director, or the director's designee, approves the application, he or she shall endorse his or her approval upon each original of the agreement of purchase and assumption and shall deliver the agreement to the applicant. One original of the agreement bearing the director's, or the director's designee's, approval in writing shall be filed with the director, or the director's designee, and the other shall be retained by the applicant as evidence of the approval. The applicant shall cause notice of any abandonment of a transaction approved pursuant to this subsection to be filed with the director, or the director's designee, and in the event of such abandonment, any approval granted hereunder shall be null and void.
R.I. Gen. Laws § 19-7-6