Paraguay's Ueno Bank Dissolved by Central Bank, Leaving Some 3 Million Customers Locked Out: 35 Lawmakers File Impeachment Articles Against President Pena
On November 4, 35 opposition lawmakers in Paraguay filed impeachment articles against President Santiago Pena in the 80-seat Chamber of Deputies and asked congressional leaders to convene an extraordinary session on November 5 to debate the president's future. The political crisis was triggered by the collapse this week of the digital bank ueno, dissolved by the central bank, which left some 3 million customers unable to access their accounts in a country of about 6.5 million people.
The board of the Central Bank of Paraguay voted unanimously on November 2 to place ueno into resolution and announced in the early hours of November 3 that the bank's solvency ratio had fallen to less than half the legally required minimum. Once the procedure began, ueno's app, cards and transfer services all went offline. Ueno grew quickly from a niche fintech player into Paraguay's largest digital bank and fifth-largest private lender, with about 3 million customers, and administered close to $850 million in public funds, including about $380 million invested by the state social security institute (IPS).
Under Paraguayan law, the deposit guarantee fund covers up to 228.3 million guaranies per depositor (about $38,600, equal to 75 monthly minimum wages), payable within 15 days, by November 17, extendable once; the central bank's preliminary estimate is that about 97 percent of depositors are fully covered.
The fallout widened quickly. Central bank president Carlos Carvallo, who once ran ueno himself, resigned on November 3. Prosecutors the same day issued arrest warrants for eight ueno executives and businessmen, including chief executive Federico Miguel Vazquez and bank president Juan Manuel Gustale; the men later turned themselves in and courts froze assets connected to the group. Supervisors documented that between September 2025 and May 2026 ueno disbursed about $146 million in loans and credit facilities to three companies treated as related parties of Grupo Vazquez, the bank's controlling shareholder.
Opposition lawmakers accuse Pena of conflicts of interest, misuse of pension funds and institutional cover-ups. Pena was a shareholder until March 2025 in Grupo Vazquez, which controls ueno. 'Never before has anyone harmed 3 million people in a single day in the Republic of Paraguay, and you achieved it, Mr. President,' opposition lawmaker Rocio Vallejo told a congressional session. Pena has not publicly addressed the impeachment push; in a social media post on November 4 he urged political leaders to prioritize depositors' interests and said those responsible for irregularities would face justice 'without exceptions.'
The opposition remains short of the two-thirds majority needed to advance impeachment, but has secured backing from several dissident members of the ruling Colorado Party. Several other banking apps in Paraguay experienced outages on November 4; the Association of Banks of Paraguay (Asoban) said lenders were absorbing a surge of customers shifting accounts from ueno and that the banking system 'continues to operate normally.' Ueno has made no public statement.
Source: Reuters
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：巴拉圭中央银行大楼（位于亚松森）。CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Central Bank of Paraguay headquarters in Asunción. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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