It's why I still go through pains to get dollars down here instead of just using my debit card - and am getting set up to import money legally through being a monotributista (as opposed to declaring money here not brought in via the central bank). Even if I had to go to a cueva, I'd only being paying 5%...over 8 is ridiculous to me.
I mentioned this a number of months ago when we heard the 500 peso notes were going to come out. I've heard some machines have them, but around where we live, the ones I go to I haven't seen a single 500 pesos note (on Santa Fe from 9 de Julio up to around Callao is where I've hit). Seems to me that if the banks would use these bills, 1) the ATMs wouldn't run out of money under normal usage and 2) they should be able to allow higher withdrawals, which will bring down the cost.
But no, this is Argentina...
When I first came here in 2006, I pulled everything I needed out of the ATM, up to my debit card limit, every day I needed money (well, sorry, Friday, Saturday and Sunday all count as one day). A single transaction. At the time the limit was...you guessed it! 2400 pesos. At 3 pesos to the dollar, that was $800 USD, which just happened to be my debit card limit. I didn't have to think about a cueva until I was paying programmers from my own pocket instead of doing transfers to a company based on invoicing (the latter being how we started out).
So here we are where the peso has gone from 3-1 to 15-1, a five-fold loss in value against the dollar, and the banks still have the same limit on withdrawals.
It would be nice if they would put $500 pesos notes in the machines and raise the limit to $12,000 (a five-fold increase in the limit). When you do the (quite simple) math, you realize, in fact, that it would take 24 $500 pesos bills to cover that amount. Coincidentally (well, not too much!) - to get out $2400 pesos you need 24 $100 pesos notes.
At this desired limit, to use Rich One's very useful formula (and assuming no rise in fees!), (196 /12000) x 100 = 1.63% - A better number and one I could live with to use the ATMs for a lot of my monetary requirements (and man, do I love math - a five-fold reduction in the fees! Well, assuming you could get out 12K pesos - obviously lower limits are more expensive). I used to do better in the cuevas (1% - 1.5%) before things got really crazy, but hey, the ATMs can be quite convenient. And especially if we are talking about less than a whole point difference.
"Back in the old days" I used to get $50s out of the ATMs too. I don't recall if they used to put out 20s and 10s as well (seems like I remember that). But they could very easily put both $500 and $100 bills in the machines and serve them out as makes sense, given the amount the customer is requesting.
They should at least double or triple the amount you can get out. But of course, that would also make illegal money outside of the country easier to get to, which is probably not what Macri wants. On the other hand, it makes things easier and cheaper for tourists...which Macri does want.
I mentioned this a number of months ago when we heard the 500 peso notes were going to come out. I've heard some machines have them, but around where we live, the ones I go to I haven't seen a single 500 pesos note (on Santa Fe from 9 de Julio up to around Callao is where I've hit). Seems to me that if the banks would use these bills, 1) the ATMs wouldn't run out of money under normal usage and 2) they should be able to allow higher withdrawals, which will bring down the cost.
But no, this is Argentina...
When I first came here in 2006, I pulled everything I needed out of the ATM, up to my debit card limit, every day I needed money (well, sorry, Friday, Saturday and Sunday all count as one day). A single transaction. At the time the limit was...you guessed it! 2400 pesos. At 3 pesos to the dollar, that was $800 USD, which just happened to be my debit card limit. I didn't have to think about a cueva until I was paying programmers from my own pocket instead of doing transfers to a company based on invoicing (the latter being how we started out).
So here we are where the peso has gone from 3-1 to 15-1, a five-fold loss in value against the dollar, and the banks still have the same limit on withdrawals.
It would be nice if they would put $500 pesos notes in the machines and raise the limit to $12,000 (a five-fold increase in the limit). When you do the (quite simple) math, you realize, in fact, that it would take 24 $500 pesos bills to cover that amount. Coincidentally (well, not too much!) - to get out $2400 pesos you need 24 $100 pesos notes.
At this desired limit, to use Rich One's very useful formula (and assuming no rise in fees!), (196 /12000) x 100 = 1.63% - A better number and one I could live with to use the ATMs for a lot of my monetary requirements (and man, do I love math - a five-fold reduction in the fees! Well, assuming you could get out 12K pesos - obviously lower limits are more expensive). I used to do better in the cuevas (1% - 1.5%) before things got really crazy, but hey, the ATMs can be quite convenient. And especially if we are talking about less than a whole point difference.
"Back in the old days" I used to get $50s out of the ATMs too. I don't recall if they used to put out 20s and 10s as well (seems like I remember that). But they could very easily put both $500 and $100 bills in the machines and serve them out as makes sense, given the amount the customer is requesting.
They should at least double or triple the amount you can get out. But of course, that would also make illegal money outside of the country easier to get to, which is probably not what Macri wants. On the other hand, it makes things easier and cheaper for tourists...which Macri does want.
