Venezuela took control of a local bank owned by Allen Stanford, who faces U.S. fraud charges, the finance minister said on Thursday, as the impact of the American case spread through Latin America, Reuters reported. Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez said the government would seek to quickly sell the bank. In recent days, depositors had worried that the trouble at Stanford International Bank would hurt Stanford Bank Venezuela and had withdrawn cash from the small local bank even though the companies' assets are separate, industry officials and bank customers said.

Rafael Correa, Ecuador's left-wing president, has heightened fears that the Andean nation will default on parts of its $10 billion (£6.8 billion) foreign debt, saying an internal audit due out this week will determine if the debt is "illegitimate," the Financial Times reported today. "If there are sufficient grounds for illegitimacy, we won't pay this debt," he said.