Prohibition on drawing from accounts in pesos from outside Argentina from April 3rd

[ndcj]

A heads up, from April 3 you will not be able to withdraw funds from foreign ATMs or use an Argentine debit card to make purchases outside Argentina from cajas de ahorro or cuentas corrientes that are denominated in pesos.

You can only withdraw funds/use a debit card internationally to debit from your account in USD, not the one in pesos.

This only applies to withdrawals from Argentine accounts, nothing to do with withdrawals in pesos from foreign accounts at ATMs located in Argentina.

No dirigimos a Uds. a los efectos de comunicarles que se ha dispuesto con vigencia a partir del 03.04.12 inclusive, que los retiros de moneda extranjera con el uso de tarjetas de débito locales desde cajeros automáticos ubicados en el exterior, deberán ser efectuados con débito a cuentas locales del cliente en moneda extranjera

http://www.bcra.gov.ar/pdfs/comytexord/A5294.pdf

 

[mikaela]

but we can't buy dollars
I hope this is not correct....

 

[davonz]

Well this is going to piss off alot of argentines... unless they have foreign courrency to take with them they are screwed...

 

[ndcj]

but we can't buy dollars
I hope this is not correct....

It's correct, it's a BCRA communication.

It basically closes the last "en blanco" loophole to get dollars if you are not willing/able to obtain AFIP permission. It'll be interesting to see if it pushes the parallel dollar rate up again, and for how long, being that the gap between the two rates has been falling lately.

 

[AngelinBA]

Man, I hope they don't extend this to credt card accounts as well.

 

[ndcj]

Man, I hope they don't extend this to credt card accounts as well.

Someone will surely correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think they can do that in the current framework.

When you use your credit card in a foreign currency, it's the issuing bank that is acquiring the foreign currency, not you personally, so it shouldn't be related to your ability to buy dollars. You're just acquiring a debt in a foreign currency, not purchasing that currency.

I don't know about other credit card issuers, but at least American Express Argentina now allows you to pay your U$S charges in pesos to avoid you having to obtain dollars.

 

[French jurist]

Yop, there's also "Comunicacion A5295" which affects residents, tourists and even permatourists (I'm analyzing this text since this morning).


For the one mentionned above, here are the details:


Two new rules (Comunicaciones A 5294 & A 5295 from the Central Bank) :

- Comunicacion A 5294:
Who does it apply to?
Everybody who has a local bank account and wishes to withdraw money outside of Argentina in a foreign currency.

What’s the rule?
In order to be allower to make a withdrawal, outside of Argentina, in a foreign currency on an Argentinean bank account, it will be needed to have the corresponding amount, in the Argentinean account, in the foreign currency.

Example:
You have an Argentinean bank account and a debit card associated to it (text doesn’t mention credit cards… Not too sure how to interpret that). If you want to withdraw USDs at an ATM in Uruguay, you’ll need to have the same amount of USDs in your Argentinean account (otherwise the transaction will be denied I guess).

When does it start?
April 3rd 2012

Questions to wonder:
- Withdrawing rupees in India from an Argentinean bank account (hard to open an account in rupees here indeed): I guess the rupees would be taken from the local account in USDs
- I find it odd this new rule only refers to “Tarjetas de debito” (what’s not forbidden should be allowed…? --> stricto sensu, this text shouldn't apply to credit cards but maybe credit cards here can't be used to withdraw money abroad, anyone knows?)

 

[davonz]

Man, I hope they don't extend this to credt card accounts as well.

I am sure if they can they will..
This whole thing is to stop the flight of US$ from the country, due to the fact when you withdraw money from a foreign ATM using an argentine ATM card the argentina bank has to then settle that transaction using US$. eg: when i withdraw pesos from ATM with NZ card, its converted into US$ via VISA network then converted to NZ$ at NZ end. The NZ bank then settles the transaction with VISA, who then pay out to argentine bank.

I wonder if this is in response to argentines withdrawing large amounts from ATM's while on holiday. I met a few argentines in colombia/ecuador who were cleaning out their peso bank accounts with ATM withdrawals before they went back to argentina so they could take back US$.

 

[French jurist]

I don't understand why they didn't include the CCs in it?

 

[mcaffa]

This is extremely disturbing news, as I oftentimes withdraw funds from my Argentine account when I travel abroad.

How on earth do they expect Argentines to travel internationally? With credit cards only? What about people who don't have credit cards? This is absolutely bogus. Grrrr. Viva Cristina.