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Through the streets of Asunción there is an endless parade of faces anguished by a crisis that many Paraguayans could not foresee: the closure of Ueno Bank, the largest bank in the country.
According to official entities, almost 50 percent of the country's population had a savings account in this bank, including pensioners who received their funds through the entity.
And 90% of the accounts belonged to small savers, who now do not have access to the funds and do not know if they will be able to recover their money.
This crisis, which began this Monday with the closure of the bank, continued dramatically when the country's president, Santiago Peña - with very close ties to Ueno Bank - resigned from the presidency this Thursday, but Congress did not accept his resignation.
That made people take to the streets to show their discontent with a situation that involves the president and his party, Colorado, which he has had in power for decades.
"I lost my entire life's savings, I only have 8,000 guaraníes (about a dollar). Everyone should go to prison," Marcelino Vergara, 68, told the AFP news agency through tears as he walked through the streets of Asunción protesting the bank's closure.
In conversation with BBC Mundo, Thiago Nardelli, a student who sells clothing and fashion items to survive, reveals that the severity of the situation could be even greater if there is no response soon.
"Personally, it affected me a lot, since I had all the capital of my business and my savings in that bank and to this day I still haven't recovered a peso, I have clients who had reserved items that they can't pay me for and I can't pay them back either because the money in their reserves is still frozen," says the entrepreneur.
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Nardelli put his money there because the bank offered many benefits, especially to young people ("they gave us an account just by scanning your face and your ID number," he says), in addition to including other services.
"This month I had invested a larger sum than normal, I loaded my stock quite well and now I am out of money and with a lot of items unemployed since no one in my audience has money," Nardelli tells us.
According to the Central Bank of Paraguay, there is a guarantee fund to respond for the savings of the users of the closed bank. However, this only applies to people who have savings of more than 10 million guaraníes (about US$1,600) and do not have debts with the bank.
"And the rest of the people who do not meet these requirements, what is going to happen to them?" claims Nardelli.
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In just under three years, Ueno Bank had become an almost omnipresent brand throughout Paraguay: sponsor of the national soccer team, with a high advertising budget, with the public support of personalities.
In fact, ten players from the soccer team stated that they have been affected by the bankruptcy. The South American Football Confederation, which is based in Paraguay, also confirmed that it had an investment of close to US$14 million in this bank.
Therefore, its fall has put the country almost on pause, waiting for a solution. And also, in the search for those responsible.
And the first name that comes to light is that of President Peña.
"Santiago Peña harmed many Paraguayans, many families, many people, many businessmen, micro-entrepreneurs and many people, even my son, who also had his small savings in Ueno Bank," Cynthia Farina, who was at this week's protests, told AFP.
"And until now we are waiting (for the money to be returned). They said three days, but so far nothing is happening and today is the time we have to leave, we have to talk or if not, when?" added the protester.
This Friday, Peña's fate is expected to be decided in an express impeachment trial, but that does not mean that the crisis is over.
"It is not that I am affected only because my savings are frozen, it is that it also affects me because my parents, who received their pension from this bank, do not have their money either and do not have the means to buy anything," Fernando Céspedes tells BBC Mundo.
Céspedes works as an engineer in a meat processing plant in Asunción.
"There are many aspects to this crisis," he points out.
Others point out that the modernization that Ueno Bank brought to Paraguayan banking was what made it so popular in such a few years.
"Ueno bank was excellent. Its mobile app, the service in the stores and the ease it provided for people living abroad was the best in Paraguay. It greatly modernized the financial system and bankrolled many people who previously operated with cash," Pablo Orué, a Paraguayan who has lived in Taipei for 10 years, told BBC Mundo.
"But they let them take the money and now my wife and I are seeing how we can recover our savings," he adds.
International involvement
But although the biggest blow has been seen in Paraguay, the size of Ueno Bank has meant that the crisis has international repercussions.
For example, this Thursday the announcement was made by the technology consulting firm Itti (belonging to the Vázquez Group, owner of the intervened bank) to suspend 1,000 workers in Argentina who provide services remotely through a local company, Kaitel SRL.
"They had to deposit our salary and they didn't. And they took away all access to the systems," Mauricio Keorkis, an employee of the firm, told the newspaper La Voz de Argentina.
And in Brazil the effects have also been seen.
Brazilian Renata de Brito, 44, got a surprise on Tuesday, when she opened the Banco Ueno application in Paraguay and could no longer access her account.
It was in the bank where he kept all his savings and received payments from his clients at the snack bar he runs in the city of Hernandarias, near the border with Brazil.
"They told me it was blocked when they tried to make a payment to me. When I checked, I couldn't access anything anymore. I'm very worried about my business," De Brito, who used the bank's payment terminal, tells BBC Brasil.
Economist Alexandre Barros da Costa, a researcher who follows the Paraguayan economy at the Federal University for Latin American Integration (Unila) and the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), estimates that the Ueno crisis could affect tens of thousands of Brazilians living in the country.
That's because, according to Costa, the bank attracts immigrants to its customer base because of the relative ease of opening accounts.
"The lack of bureaucracy and the quick registration process made it the first option for thousands of medical students, small border merchants, rural producers and investors," the economist tells BBC Brazil.
In Asunción they hope that the situation will be resolved soon, but many feel that this crisis was a rock bottom that politicians reached.
"All my savings, my cards, they were all manipulated and given to people who tried to play Monopoly with people's money," Marilu Cubilla tells BBC Mundo.
"I want there to be a record of all this manipulation and the pain that people in Paraguay go through. These people who had to receive a bonus, retired people, people who lost their jobs due to the theft committed by their bosses," he concludes.
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