President Of South American Country Resigns After Major Digital Bank Collapses, Over 60% Of Nation’s Adults Were Customers

Paraguay President Santiago Peña resigns after the collapse of Ueno Bank. https://t.co/wkGg9rwqDQ

— The Associated Press (@AP) November 5, 2026

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Minutes after Peña’s announcement, the lower house voted 78-0 to impeach him, sending the charges to the Senate. Congressional leaders were expected to accept his resignation later Thursday, clearing the way for Vice President Pedro Alliana to be sworn in without waiting for a Senate trial.

As lawmakers debated his impeachment, Peña said in a video posted to X that he was stepping down in the interest of “the stability of our country, social peace and the need to preserve our democratic institutions.”

Even Peña’s mentor, Colorado Party leader and former President Horacio Cartes, backed impeachment, saying the party would not side with “the plundering of public and private funds and pensioners’ money.” The United States Treasury sanctioned Cartes in 2023 over bribery allegations that the Trump administration lifted last year.

Peña, who until last year held a stake in a company linked to Ueno, expressed contrition. But he stopped short of accepting responsibility for the turmoil, which has left millions of depositors, retirees and workers scrambling to recoup their frozen savings and unpaid wages.

“I want to apologize to the people if I have failed them at any point,” he said. “It was never my intention to betray the trust they placed in me.”

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Paraguay’s President ⁠Santiago Pena has just resigned following mounting pressure from a bank crisis. This comes after Paraguay’s central bank seized a major digital lender, preventing millions of customers from accessing their accounts.

Al Jazeera’s Lucia Newman reports. pic.twitter.com/o5B6npF1Tc

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 5, 2026

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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.

Ueno has made no public statement on the issue.

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.

In a note to clients, JPMorgan said the ueno developments had “rapidly acquired a political dimension,” adding that risks to the wider financial system would hinge on “the speed ⁠and transparency” of authorities’ response.

Prosecutors issued arrest warrants for the eight ueno executives on 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.

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