Venezuela on Friday took over three more banks, raising the week's tally to seven, in a clean-up of the financial sector that has worried investors but seen unlikely to herald a major nationalisation wave. Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez said the three small private institutions - Baninvest, Central Banco Universal, and Banco Real, which account for just 2 percent of Venezuela's banking deposits - would hopefully be "rehabilitated" by the state.
"The rest of the financial system is in good hands despite the criminal campaigns going on," Rodriguez said, accusing opponents of socialist President Hugo Chavez of trying to destabilise Venezuela through rumours of a bank crisis.
Most analysts believe the Chavez government is engaged in a purging exercise of a minority of banks with funding or ownership irregularities, rather than being on the brink of taking over another sector in the South American nation. Socialist Chavez, a harsh critic of the United States and Wall Street, has nationalised large sectors of his Opec nation's economy since coming to power in 1999. So far, he has held back from large-scale seizures in the banking sector.
"We are not facing a situation of crisis in the national bank system, despite the enormous, deep crisis that has shaken the financial world, and severely affected developed economies, particularly the United States," Rodriguez said in a TV speech. A first clutch of closures on Monday - of four small banks accounting for 6 percent of deposits - worried depositors and unsettled markets. Venezuelan bonds plummeted and the bolivar currency weakened in nonofficial trade.