Jan 26 (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez called a senior official at the local unit of Spain's BBVA bank live on television on Wednesday to threaten the financial institution with nationalization if mortgage-seekers were not better served.
The socialist president has frequently threatened to take over any banks that stand in the way of financing for much-needed homebuilding in the country, and has singled out BBVA'S Banco Provincial unit in the past.
But he upped the ante on Wednesday when, after hearing complaints by would-be homeowners about lack of attention from Provincial, he phoned the bank official during a TV address.
"If Banco Provincial, which you preside over here in Venezuela, is not prepared to comply with the law and presidential decrees, then prepare to hand me the bank, I'll pay whatever it costs," Chavez told the official whom he named as Pedro Rodriguez, Provincial's executive president.
"I can expropriate it whenever I want."
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