Context: How Bolsa de Valores de Asuncion works, and what it makes issuers disclose · Paraguay on the LatAm Power Map
CREDICENTRO S.A.E.C.A. — ticker CCO.PY on the Bolsa de Valores de Asunción — spent four decades as Paraguay’s most recognisable non-bank lender before its controlling family remade it into a corporate holding vehicle and then folded it into their conglomerate entirely.
It is a company that has already ceased to exist in the form in which it was listed.
| Full legal name | CREDICENTRO S.A.E.C.A. (renamed UENO HOLDING S.A.E.C.A. in late 2022; absorption into Grupo Vázquez S.A.E. in progress as of 2025) |
|---|---|
| Ticker / exchange | CCO.PY — Bolsa de Valores de Asunción (BVA) |
| Headquarters | Avda. Santa Teresa 1827, Torres del Paseo Torre 1 Piso 7, Asunción, Paraguay |
| Sector | Non-bank financial services / corporate holding |
| Employees | 201–500 (last disclosed estimate, 2024) |
| Total assets (Sept 2024) | Gs. 1,317,949 million (~USD 217.4 million) — our calculation |
| Net operating income (Sept 2024) | Gs. 120,672 million (~USD 19.9 million) — our calculation |
| Net profit (Sept 2024) | Gs. 19,505 million (~USD 3.2 million) — our calculation |
| Net margin (Sept 2024) | 16.16% (primary source: Solventa rating report) |
| Return on equity (Sept 2024) | 6.37% |
| Credit rating | pyBBB+ / Sensible(−) — Solventa & Riskmétrica, Sept 2024 |
| Dividend yield | Not published: no dividend declared; earnings fully retained at holding level |
| Website | www.credicentro.com.py |
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What it is
Founded in 1984, Credicentro offered personal and commercial loans in both local and foreign currency, as well as credit cards, and first listed on the Bolsa de Valores de Asunción in 2012. In 1994 it incorporated as a joint-stock company, and in 2011 it converted into an open-capital joint-stock issuer (S.A.E.C.A.) to expand its capital base.
As a “casa de crédito,” Credicentro could not take deposits from the public — unlike a bank or a financiera — so it funded its loan book entirely through bond issuances and equity, a structural constraint that shaped everything about the company. Its growth was punctuated by a strategic merger in late 2020 with PASFIN S.A.E.C.A.
and LCR S.A.E.C.A., which lifted its scale and market share within Paraguay’s regulated financial system.
Who owns it
Credicentro was founded in 1984 by the Paraguayan Vázquez family, incorporated as a corporation in 1994. At the time of its last public disclosure as Credicentro, Grupo Vázquez controlled the company with 49.09% of the equity and 86.26% of the votes — a structure common in Paraguay where preferred non-voting shares allow families to raise external capital without diluting control.
The controlling individual is Federico Miguel Vázquez Villasanti.
The company formally renamed itself UENO HOLDING S.A.E.C.A., and in early 2025, UENO HOLDING communicated to the regulator its intention to carry out a merger by absorption with Grupo Vázquez S.A.E., with Grupo Vázquez as the absorbing entity and UENO HOLDING as the absorbed one. Grupo Vázquez convened an extraordinary shareholder assembly for this absorption process in May 2025.
The listed entity is, in effect, being wound into its parent; public minority shareholders are exiting.
Who runs it
Federico Miguel Vázquez Villasanti is President of Grupo Vázquez and Vice-President and CEO of ueno bank, having specialised in Finance, Business Management and Digital Transformation at INCAE. In the context of the merger process, the board members of UENO Holding — including Miguel Federico Vázquez Villasanti, Juan Manuel Gústale, Franklin Boccia, Silvia Murto de Méndez and Gladys Lía Muniagurria de Vázquez — tendered their resignations as titular and alternate directors in February 2025.
Not published: the role of a dedicated CFO for CREDICENTRO/UENO HOLDING as a standalone entity was not separately disclosed in the company’s filings or rating reports reviewed (BVA filing page, Superintendencia de Valores, and Solventa rating reports); Paraguayan SAECA disclosure rules under Ley 1.284/98 and CNV resolutions require board composition but do not mandate naming a CFO as a distinct office for non-bank issuers.
The money, in plain words
By September 2024 the entity’s gross operating income had grown sharply, from Gs. 80,632 million in September 2023 to Gs.
406,221 million in the same period of 2024 — but that leap reflects the consolidation of new affiliated companies’ revenues, not organic credit growth. The net operating income the business actually kept after costs was Gs.
120,672 million (~USD 19.9M), and the net profit was Gs. 19,505 million (~USD 3.2M), a net margin of 16.16% — reasonable for a financial holding but well below what Credicentro earned in its active lending years.
The return on equity — how much the owners earned for every guaraní they left in the business — improved from 5.91% in September 2023 to 6.37% in September 2024, still modest. The company’s total liabilities grew 24.21%, from Gs.
716,427 million to Gs. 889,857 million, pushing the leverage ratio from 1.68 to 2.08 — meaning the business now owes roughly twice what its owners have put in, up sharply, a risk flag the rating agency explicitly noted.
Feller Rate assigned a credit rating of BBBpy with a Stable outlook to the bonds issued under the old Credicentro name, while the UENO HOLDING bond programme LCR G9 was rated pyBBB+ by Solventa & Riskmétrica, under the framework of Ley 3.899/09 and CNV resolution 35/23. Both ratings sit in the “adequate but susceptible” tier — serviceable debt, but not gilt-edged.
What it is doing now
CREDICENTRO no longer exists as a lender. Credicentro SAECA — now UENO HOLDING — began operations 40 years ago in Asunción as a credit house offering personal and commercial loans, cheque discounting, credit cards, payment services and Western Union money transfers.
The business plan shifted to integrating Credicentro with Financiera UENO S.A.E.C.A., also controlled by Grupo Vázquez, subject to regulatory approval, and that integration has since completed — Financiera UENO is now ueno bank S.A., a full commercial bank. UENO HOLDING communicated a capital reduction and share cancellation to the regulator in April 2025, a step consistent with winding down its separate public listing.
In 2024, ueno bank (the operating entity born from the Credicentro/El Comercio fusion) acquired Visión Banco, broadening its client base and surpassing one million active credit cards. At end-2025, Hungarian banking group OTP Bank joined as a strategic shareholder, investing USD 30 million for a 6.4% stake channelled through U Holdings SARL.
This is news, not investment advice.
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