Banks. Has anyone else heard this?

[fred mertz]

I'm wondering what is meant by ''as a courtesy''? Does it mean that they don't have an obligation to inform their customers that their money may be stolen from them? This sounds scary.

 

[ghost]

When corporations are ordered to repatriate their funds and individuals receive letters regarding deposits it is definitely time to suspect unfavorable changes. Be safe, the smart money folks have already acted. The volume of funds moving through the "Blue Money" network has increased dramatically.

 

[Ries]

Nothing in Argentina necessarily works the same way twice in a row-
BUT-
2 weeks ago my wife successfully opened a bank account WITHOUT a DNI.

She was told the only bank that will open an account for an extranero without a DNI is Banco La Nacion, and they will only open one type, a cuenta de ahorros.
No privately owned bank would let her open account.

But she went to the Banco La Nacion on Santa Fe near Plaza Italia, sat, as she calls it, "playing bingo" (waiting for her torno) for over an hour, and, at the end, she got a bank account.
We now have a tarjeta for the ATM, which will work to withdraw and deposit at any LINK ATM, we have Home Banking (online bill paying) and we have debito automatico for our utility bills, which was our main goal for doing this in the first place.

So it worked once. Which, of course, does not mean it will work again, but its worth a try.

We live mostly in the USA, and paying our bills online is a HUGE improvement for us over paying somebody to pay our bills in cash in Buenos Aires, and somehow getting them cash.
Of course, this bank account does not allow you to electronically transfer funds from outside the country- I dont think that is possible no matter what. We have to manually deposit pesos, not dollars, into our account, but we have various tricks for that. Friends are handy to have in BsAs.

When I first moved to LA, back in the 80's, a friend told me- first thing about Los Angeles, you gotta have a backup. For everything. Well, that goes double for Buenos Aires...

 

[2GuysInPM]

Three weeks ago I helped a dutch friend open a savings account here at Banco Frances without a DNI or residency. No issues. The only thing they asked for was a CDI # (he got it same day at AFIP), his passport, and a utility bill (wasn't even in his name). It was opened the same day, and ten days later he got his debit card by mail. They offered him both Dollar and Peso accounts. He picked pesos only as he had no need for the other.

 

[Fettucini]

I went to the bank today, turns out they just wanted a signature from me to keep on file. She assured me that it was nothing to do with being a foreigner, or lack of DNI.
Looks like the central bank is trying crack down on things though. I'm getting a bit nervous about all these changes having a property here, wonder how easy it would be to send money out of Argentina from the sale of a property now, or even a couple of years from now.. seems like they're pretty intent on nothing leaving the country.

 

[Sleuth]

I went to Galicia today to check on my account there which was only opened with my old passport number two years ago. They told me that it was true that I could no longer keep my account with just a passport number. I needed to provide them with a copy of my original CUIT or CUIL. My DNI was not enough.

 

[John.St]

point 1, they can't confiscate money without a court order,
point 2, ...
point 3, ...

2001 - remember?

 

[KevinK]

I'm wondering what is meant by ''as a courtesy''? Does it mean that they don't have an obligation to inform their customers that their money may be stolen from them? This sounds scary.

yes in argentina they dont have to..as a matter of fact sometimes they are instructed not to...during the last bad one the "corrallito" when the govt froze all accounts and deflated the peso by a factor of three the banks were instructed to freeze their clients money and interestingly the only bank that refused (lloyds Bank) instead of complying with the illegal directive "CHose" to pay off all their clients in the currency the account was in and close up rather than follow the directives of the then govt but that was the exceptpn and not the rule..do what argentines do..keep the absolute min you have to in your argentine account to do your monthly business and living

 

[Napoleon]

2001 - remember?

In case you don't, there are photo reminders in front of the Casa Rosada right now. I assume to show you how tranquilo things are compared to then, but I doubt that this administration would than manipulative.

 

[John.St]

The situation today is far from what it was in 2001, but to claim that the government "can't confiscate money without a court order" is counterfactual.

I very much doubt it will happen under the present conditions.

However, the law only allows you to have a savings account w/o a permanent DNI and that may be what is being enforced.

Customers w/o a permanent DNI may be forced to close their ordinary accounts and either withdraw their money or move them to a savings account (guessing!).