Paraguay returns part of their savings to all Ueno Bank clients with guaranteed funds

The Central Bank of Paraguay announced this Wednesday that it returned at least part of their savings to 100% of depositors with the right to guarantee from Ueno Bank, although most of the money is still pending recovery.

"With the amount that we are going to process today, we would already be reaching 100% of the beneficiaries of this guarantee," said Pedro Acosta, who is part of the board of directors of the Central Bank (BCP), at a press conference.

The guarantee excludes directors or shareholders of the entity and holders of mutual funds.

The BCP partially returned resources to 1,812,348 of the digital bank's savers, according to the BCP.

The total amount amounts to about 643 million dollars, which constitutes only a part of the approximately 2.8 billion that Ueno Bank had when it was intervened on November 3 due to solvency problems.

The percentage of beneficiaries reached does not mean that everyone has recovered all of their savings.

An emergency law approved by Congress last week authorized the advance payment of up to about $19,000 per depositor within one week, which ended this Wednesday.

The Deposit Guarantee Fund (FGD) protects up to about $37,000 per saver and bank, so those who had sums greater than the advance must still wait to recover the rest of their funds.

For that they will have to wait for "the transfer of assets and liabilities (of Ueno) to other financial entities," Acosta reported, whose process will begin next week. The official hopes that this next stage will be "agile" to "have news at the end of this month."

The authorities hope to use the resources obtained to complete the deposit guarantee and restore, as a priority, the retirement funds deposited in Ueno, which exceed 500 million dollars.

Among those affected are companies, soccer clubs, volunteer firefighters and public organizations such as the Social Security Institute (IPS), which administers retirement and health plans for more than 1.5 million people.

According to June data from Ueno Bank, 29% of its deposits belonged to the public sector.

Investors in mutual funds, who are not covered by the bank guarantee, are also awaiting decisions on the recovery of their money.