How a bank collapse left millions in limbo and toppled Paraguay’s president

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay — When Ueno Bank’s services abruptly stopped working in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the consequences were immediate for the millions of Paraguayans who had come to depend on it for everyday transactions.

“People don’t have any trust,” said Elizabeth González, a 28-year-old barista at a café in downtown Asunción, a few blocks from Paraguay’s Congress building, where protesters had begun gathering after the bank’s collapse was announced Tuesday.

Earlier, one customer had walked into the café and insisted on paying in cash. He no longer trusted any bank.

“If Paraguayans themselves aren’t confident right now, foreign investors will be less so,” González said.

The collapse affected far more than the bank’s shareholders. Ueno said it had 2.9 million customers — around 60% of Paraguay’s adult population. The Central Bank said the bank had approximately 1.8 million depositors.

By Saturday, authorities said almost 1.2 million customers had received an advance payment under the state’s deposit guarantee fund, but many were still waiting.

A shuttered Ueno Bank ATM in Asunción, Paraguay, after the bank’s collapse left millions of customers unable to access their money and disrupted everyday transactions across the country.

Charles Parkinson for NPR

It also led to the removal of President Santiago Peña, a close ally of President Donald Trump, and exposed a power struggle inside within the ruling Colorado Party.

The anger was palpable outside Congress on Friday, where hundreds had gathered to protest not only their inability to access their money but also what they saw as a broader failure of accountability.

“I came not because it affects me personally, but because it affects all of Paraguay,” said Elodia Saveredo, a 71-year-old housewife who sells her own handicrafts online.

Betarram Caballero, a 23-year-old fifth-year biochemistry student and president of the student center at the National University of Asunción, said classmates had money frozen that they needed to cover basic expenses.

“It wasn’t a lot of money, perhaps, but it was money for their bus fare. It was money for their food,” she said. “To hear that and not be able to do anything because I don’t have the resources to help them is very discouraging.”

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