Okay, then what do you do with them there? I assume you eventually spend them...then it's converted.
Some banks, but only a few, allow you to take the USA bills out of an ATM machine...I guess you just hope you get the big face ones so you can then go take them to a cueva, hahaha...or deposit it again, lol.
what kinds of operations are available with that account then?
withdrawal of USD subject to certain small limits?
waiting for cepo to be lifted?
The idea is that you deposit the "unwanted" dollars in a bank account and then at a later date go back to the bank and withdraw them again. There have been a hundred articles in the newspapers about this. However, those articles also warn you that when you go to withdraw them, the bank may give you the same "cara chica" type bills that you deposited.
There's a new twist, however. The government has told the bank that they will accept from them all the unwanted bills ("cara chica," scribbled on, torn, etc.) and will exchange them in the states for new ones, relieving the banks of this burden, so you now should be able to get nice new bills by depositing old ones and withdrawing new ones.
But unless you have a lot of these bills, it may not be worth it if you have to open a dollar account. Banco Nación charges US$10/month, and it's more than that in Banco Santa Fe, so I imagine that Banco Nación is about the minimum.
For the type of account I'm talking about, it's just storing the dollars there. There are no other operations. As far as I know, there are no limits to the amount you can withdraw, but you may have to let your branch know beforehand if you're withdrawing a substantial amount. (I was chastised last year for asking to withdraw 500,000
pesos without giving advance notice in my branch. And they wouldn't let me take out that enormous amount from any other branch than the branch associated with my account.)
