Cathay General Bancorp said Tuesday that the Federal Reserve Board had approved its offer to acquire 100 percent of Great Eastern Bank’s stock, moving Cathay closer to its goal of expanding into New York’s ethnic Chinese market.

For several months, Los Angeles-based Cathay, with $6.2 billion in assets, has been locked in a bidding war with UCBH Holdings Inc., the San Francisco parent of United Commercial Bank, to buy Great Eastern, a five-branch community bank in New York.

Cathay is offering up to $65 a share for Great Eastern, which is roughly $5 per share higher than UCBH’s bid in October of $103.6 million.

After UCBH made its bid, Cathay exercised options to buy 41 percent of Great Eastern’s outstanding shares from dissident shareholders. It still needs approval from New York state banking regulators.

Scott Carmel, an analyst at Boston-based Moors & Cabot, said in a research note Wednesday that he believes the UCBH merger offer will be put to a shareholder vote, but that Great Eastern will not get the required two-thirds vote needed for approval under New York state law.

Under that scenario, Great Eastern would have to pay UCBH a $4.5 million break-up fee, which would then pave the way for Cathay to conduct its own due diligence for a merger.

Shares of Cathay barely moved Wednesday, trading at $37.28 a share, while UCBH rose 2 percent to $18.55 a share.

Joe Morford, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said the outcome is still uncertain.

“We hesitate to speculate which bank will win out in this contest, but we would note that in our view neither bank needs this deal given their other growth opportunities.”