Banking in Argentina....

[loribuenosaires]

Hello everybody. I live in Bs As but work for a US company. They wire my money to a US bank account but they charge me allot for bank wires. Any banking tips for this country? I was thinking of going to Citibank and talking to them. Thank you.

 

[loribuenosaires]

PS
Also was anybody here in the crisis and the Argentine banks held your US dollars?

 

[Gaucho]

Talking to Citi is an option, but please note that Citibank in Argentina is only a subsidiary of CitiCorp in the USA, so if you have your $$$ in Citibank Argentina you still run Argentina country-risk.
I can see your issue is that you are getting charged a ton for wire transfers every month... there is no easy way to solve this. If you were getting a direct deposit in the States it would be easier, but off the top of my head you are probably better of collecting the $$$ here, and making fewer wires (say, every 3 or 4 months). Also, take back USD cash when you go on home leave, or when relatives go. Another option is to buy a cheque drafted on a US bank here in Buenos Aires.
To do this, you need to find a realiable/trustworthy casa de cambio and buy the cheque, then you mail it to your bank and deposit it in your account. If you will do this on a regular basis, they may be able to accomodate you with a smaller flat fee, but make sure to do this in somewhat larger amounts so that this costs you less.

 

[Ernie]

Another option is to buy a cheque drafted on a US bank here in Buenos Aires.
To do this, you need to find a realiable/trustworthy casa de cambio and buy the cheque, then you mail it to your bank and deposit it in your account. If you will do this on a regular basis, they may be able to accomodate you with a smaller flat fee, but make sure to do this in somewhat larger amounts so that this costs you less.

Further to Gaucho's advice, a very reliable "casa de cambio" is Casa Bell, who deal with most of the British/American-Argentine community. Their address is:
Casa Bell S.A.
San Martín 344, Piso 30
C1004AAH Capital Federal

I hope this helps!
Cheers
Ernie

 

[igor]

About Casa Bell. I called them a year ago or so. They said that I am supposed to be recommended by some of their existing clients and that they generally don't deal with strangers.

 

[Gaucho]

Two reliable financial houses that can also be contacted about this are:
Casa Piano / Banco Piano
Capital Markets Argentina
Im not sure if they will require a referral to operate with you, but in my experience if you are willing to provide proof of ID, the amounts are not outrageous and you can provide basic information on where the $$$ is from, you should be OK. In the end, all these folks are worried about is not breaking any of the money laundering laws, which have recently been tightened up (once again).

 

[loribuenosaires]

Thanks everybody. I have used Banco Piano before and liked them but they take a month to cash a check from the US.
I just got married and am going to start the process of applying for my permanent residency. Maybe I could get my name on my husbands bank account and they would charge me less. I am really not sure yet. So difficult when you work for a US company but live here. I still have not figured out the paypal thing yet. Ill post when I do.

 

[mickflynn99]

I leave my money in the U.S. and live on my ATM card. When my bank increased charges for foreign withdrawals, I began to transfer funds from my bank to my Paypal account (free) and use my Paypal ATM card (U$S 1 per transaction).

 

[Paul_NL]

Take cash money with you(you can take 10.000 dollar without any problem from the US) or use American express travellers checkes

 

[nikad]

If you have Amex credit card you can cash personal cheks at their offices close to Plaza San Martin. We do not trust the banks here and use our debit card to get cash from atms, it is a bit messy, but safer. You can wire up to 5thousand dollars to an existing account ( let´s say your hubby´s ) at a fairly cheap price ( about 50 dollars ) as ¨ayuda familiar ¨ Epassporte is used by a lot of people that work with US companies but live in other countries, you get a debit card and withdraw from any atm. Hope it helpsV