How a digital bank’s collapse toppled Paraguay’s president Santiago Pena

ASUNCION – For years, Paraguay’s digital bank, ueno, stood out as a homegrown success story, luring roughly half the country’s people to open accounts and offering many the opportunity to hold a bank account for the very first time.

But over just five days this week, the bank collapsed, freezing the savings of nearly 3 million customers – in a country of 6.5 million people – and triggering the country’s deepest political crisis in more than a decade.