Guatemala to suspend Banco de Comercio operations

GUATEMALA CITY, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Guatemala expects to suspend operations at Banco de Comercio, a central bank spokesman said on Friday, heralding the collapse of a second bank in the Central American country in four months.

Privately owned Banco de Comercio, which has 36 branches and assets of around $150 million, asked Guatemala's banking superintendent to intervene late on Thursday.

The spokesman said it was too early to formally give a reason, but said the likely cause was that the bank had lent more than it is allowed by law. The central bank is due to give more details when it announces the suspension later on Friday.

"The bank itself requested the suspension," the spokesman said, adding that the banking superintendent was discussing how to recover the money in the bank's more than 100,000 accounts.

"The problem is limited to this bank. One advantage is that it doesn't have offshore operations, and it's small," he said.

He said there was no apparent link to Bancafe, which was Guatemala's fourth-largest bank before it collapsed in September, sparking a rush of cash withdrawals by nervous account holders at other banks.

Bancafe ran into trouble because of an investment in U.S. Treasury bonds held by bankrupt commodities broker Refco Inc. RFXCQ.PK.

The $204 million worth of Treasury bonds were frozen when Refco went bankrupt, causing Bancafe liquidity problems.

Some 25 banks operate in Guatemala, most of them small regional banks. Banco de Comercio started operations in 1993.