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Paraguayan President Santiago Peña resigned Thursday after the collapse of Ueno Bank, which froze millions of customers' accounts. Vice President Pedro Alliana is next in line for the presidency.
By Hermes-Vector AI Desk
Paraguayan President Santiago Peña resigned Thursday following the collapse of Ueno Bank, a digital lender to which he had former business links, putting him under intense pressure as nearly half the population was left without access to their bank accounts.
Peña announced his resignation in a recorded video address, saying he was stepping down “with the stability of our country, social peace and the need to preserve our democratic institutions in mind.”
Opposition lawmakers had called an extraordinary session for Thursday to begin the process of filing an impeachment motion in Congress, as protesters demanded Peña’s resignation. Despite his resignation, the session went ahead as planned. The lower house approved Peña’s impeachment while rejecting an impeachment motion against Vice President Pedro Alliana, who is next in line for the presidency following Peña’s resignation. The measure now moves to the Senate, which will vote on impeachment proceedings later Thursday. Peña’s decision to step down must also be ratified by the Senate.
Paraguay’s central bank intervened in Ueno after determining that it had breached minimum solvency requirements, setting off a crisis that has left the company’s roughly 3 million customers, in a country of 6.5 million people, unable to access accounts. The fallout from the collapse of the bank, called ueno, has already led to the resignation of Paraguay’s central bank chief and the detention of eight Ueno executives.
Prosecutors issued arrest warrants for the eight Ueno executives Tuesday, and they later turned themselves in. Courts ordered their assets frozen as the investigation widened, and some of the executives were subsequently placed under house arrest.
Peña, an economist who was elected in 2023, has faced intense political scrutiny because of his past business ties to the collapsed bank. Peña was a shareholder of Grupo Vázquez, the group that owned the bank until March 2025. Peña has repeatedly rejected suggestions of improper ties. He has described the controversy as the political escalation of what began as a technical and regulatory issue and has argued that any wrongdoing should be addressed through the courts.
The crisis has undermined Paraguay’s hard-won reputation as a stable destination for foreign investment, especially from neighboring Brazil. Paraguay’s sovereign international bond prices tumbled following news of the resignation. Ueno has made no public statement on the issue.
Sources
This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.
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