OPEC member Venezuela sees no risk of debt default due to the stability of oil prices, an economic official said on Monday, amid some market fears the country faces a looming problem with maturing debt, Reuters reported. Despite growing international risk aversion, Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA and the government have issued $15.2 billion of dollar-denominated bonds so far in 2011 -- by far the largest amount in Latin America. Analysts say the maturing of various papers between 2016-17 could be a problem.

Holders of Empresas La Polar SA series A and B bonds agreed to back a debt restructuring plan that aims to avert the department store operator’s second bankruptcy in 12 years, said Nelson Contador, a legal adviser to the company, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. All of La Polar’s creditors will vote on the plan on Nov. 7, Contador told reporters during a meeting of bondholders Friday. Debt will be divided into two parts, La Polar chairman Cesar Barros told reporters at the same meeting.

Itau Unibanco Holding, Brazil's largest private-sector bank, reported its best quarterly earnings for this year as trading-related gains jumped and interest income grew faster than expenses. Gains stemming from the purchase and sale of securities and wider loan spreads offset rising defaults at Itau Unibanco. The bank earned 3.81 billion reais ($2.16 billion) in the third quarter, above the average estimate of 3.62 billion reais from nine analysts polled by Reuters last week.

Brazil's central bank said on Tuesday it will liquidate the assets of Banco Morada, which it said was insolvent and had violated legal norms, Reuters reported. The central bank, which in April said it would scrutinize the books of the Rio de Janeiro-based bank due to irregularities, said the controlling shareholders had not presented a viable recovery plan. Banco Morada has only one branch, and its total deposits as of December 2010 represented only 0.01 percent of Brazilian financial system assets and 0.03 percent of deposits, the central bank said in a statement.

Brazilian consumer bad debt rose 3 percent in August compared with July, Serasa Experian, Latin America's largest credit bureau, said on Monday, Reuters reported. Compared with a year earlier, August bad debt was 29.2 percent higher, Serasa Experian said in a statement. In the January-August period, bad debt was 23.4 percent higher than the same period a year earlier, Serasa Experian said. Serasa Experian is part of the London-based Experian group, the largest credit bureau outside the United States.

Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez has signed into law modifications to the country's bankruptcy code that will give workers greater power to take over bankrupt firms at the expense of creditors such as banks, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Among the more controversial aspects of the law published Thursday in the Official Bulletin is a provision that allows the workers of a bankrupt firm who set up a cooperative to ask a judge to suspend for up to two years the ability of creditors to execute guarantees backed by the company's property or assets.

Brazilian policy-makers have fueled their country's economic boom through a state-owned bank that keeps business flush with credit, The Wall Street Journal reported. Now the engine that has helped the nation become a global player in beef, oil and mining is colliding with another policy imperative: battling inflation. The Brazilian National Development Bank, in its latest spur to the economy, last week announced it would lend $1.6 billion at below-market interest rates to help a large company to build a pulp and paper mill.

Small and medium-sized Brazilian lenders will have to merge with rivals to strengthen their capital base and revamp their fundraising structure, central bank director Anthero Meirelles said in a newspaper interview published on Monday, Reuters reported. Smaller financial institutions must "adapt their strategies" to face a more competitive landscape in the industry, Meirelles, the central bank's industry watchdog, told Valor Economico.

The world's biggest economies hope to make progress this week on a plan to identify countries that put the global economy at risk, while China warned against any moves that would curb its red-hot growth, Reuters reported. The meeting of the Group of 20 rich and emerging-market nations comes at a time of conflicting economic signals. Just as signs of a strengthening recovery in some rich countries have pushed their central banks to begin to pull back on economic supports, world markets have been rocked by fears that high oil prices will put the brakes on global growth.

A high-level executive at Latin America's largest shipping company in terms of revenue, Chile's Compania Sudamericana de Vapores SA, said the company won't go bankrupt despite recent financial troubles that have led to market speculation it could fail, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Vapores, whose finances have been weighed down by hefty ship and container leasing fees, as well as rising international crude oil prices, is looking to stanch its financial hemorrhaging through a $500 million capital increase and the listing of up to 49% of its SAAM ports unit.