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

[surfing]

This will also make it so that instead of the safety and convenience of carrying a debit card, Argentines will have to literally empty their accounts and travel with large amounts of cash being as they will not be able to use their debit cards for ATM/POS transactions abroad. Not everyone uses/wants a credit card for travelling. I personally use my debit card for just about everything.

That is so stupid, isn´t the idea that the want to keep the money IN the country?

I can literally see that Porteño family making a trip to their local Citi Bank the day before going to Disney World or Miami and asking the teller to withdraw for them the peso equivalent of US $10,000 in cash.

It's even worse because then they would have to convert the pesos in to dollars or euros which brings us right back to where we started.

 

[toongeorges]

Yep...a good copy of the venezuelan model-revolution.

The differente is, that here in Argentina you just need to be OK with AFIP (although you can only buy USD according to your annual and declared income)... in Venezuela this is not enough, and you can earn thousands (of BSF) a month, but currency trading is exclusive to the government. They decide to sell you or not.

Another difference is that Venezuela has oil...
Oil to neutralise financial unsound policies.
Argentina instead has soy beans.
What can Argentina do with soy?

 

[what wave]

So, if I have this correct, the largest transaction I'm able to realise now for an online international purchase is equal to how many dollars the AFIP will sell me?

 

[AlexanderB]

So, if I have this correct, the largest transaction I'm able to realise now for an online international purchase is equal to how many dollars the AFIP will sell me?

If you're using your bank debit card, it does indeed look that way, unless the online merchant accepts foreign currencies. I don't know how that would be indicated.

If some sort of reform of this nature were undertaken in the US, I would assume it's a hand-out to credit card companies. But there is, of course, something else afoot here.

 

[marksoc]

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$.

Yes, it is because of this. Basically, if you work legally and pay your taxes, you can buy the USD (approved by AFIP) and put them in your USD account. I would prefer that AFIP approves the amount based on my account in Pesos (after all, it is the same the convert them to USD-->whatever coin I use abroad, than to take the work to convert them previous to an international trip). This measure can be seen also as a tool to curtain traveling abroad, and I think will only make people angry (but of course, only if they don´t have enough legal USD).

For people earning "en negro" this will not be a difficulty, since those people already travel with the cash in their hands (they travel with black market USD).

 

[YanquiGallego]

This is yet another disadvantage to having an Argentine bank account and yet another reason why I am so glad I never even bothered. The fact that they want to keep the cash in the country yet ban foreigners with genuine, good income sources from opening up an Argy bank account never made ANY sense to me. Everything happens for a reason. When I first moved here, Citi Bank's Citi Gold corporate office assured me that their international transfer program was indeed in full swing, and that SI O SI I would be able to get a Citi Gold account in Argentina based on my great history (two accounts, Spain and the US) with Citi, however when I went to my local SUCURSAL the CANCHERO banker (who arrived late and obviously hung over) basically laughed at the notion of my being able to just ¨get¨ a Citi Gold account and literally showed me to the door.Since then, I didnt even bother with this KILOMBO. Thankfully, I can use both my US and Spain debit cards anywhere.

I´m sure this will also burn briges with Visa and MC as they advertise their products as being international.

 

[citygirl]

But is that an abstract objection to the controls with a hypothetical example, or is that your situation?

From what I understand, you should be able to change to dollars just about everything declared above somewhere around $2300 (Salario Mínimo Vital y Móvil) plus whatever you pay in private school fees, prepagas, etc, that are tracked by AFIP, each month. You should also be able to get permission for a one off purchase of a larger amount where you haven't been purchasing any dollars in previous months.

If you're using savings from abroad to supplement your income, then you'd do better using up your pesos first, or going to AFIP with documentation in hand that proves the provenance of the savings (being prepared to start paying bienes personales if you have more than $305,000 pesos abroad).

Obviously people who are "perma-tourists", working en negro or otherwise not square with AFIP are basically stuck in the black market, which simply matches their employment situation.

Should be able to and actually are able to are very different things here as I'm sure you know. FWIW, I personally know of multiple people who were either denied permission to purchase dollars or given really low limits. And these are people who aren't in negro.

I think perma-tourists are actually in much better shape than the average Argentine. Get on a plane, fly to Miami (or London or wherever) and take out your 10,000 in USD from your bank account there and come back here. Or go across the border to Uruguay for a week or two and do the same via ATM. All perfectly legal and lord knows, you won't have trouble finding ways to change the money into pesos.

 

[syngirl]

This will also make it so that instead of the safety and convenience of carrying a debit card, Argentines will have to literally empty their accounts and travel with large amounts of cash being as they will not be able to use their debit cards for ATM/POS transactions abroad. Not everyone uses/wants a credit card for travelling. I personally use my debit card for just about everything.

That is so stupid, isn´t the idea that the want to keep the money IN the country?

I can literally see that Porteño family making a trip to their local Citi Bank the day before going to Disney World or Miami and asking the teller to withdraw for them the peso equivalent of US $10,000 in cash.

Yeah and too bad to said family when they arrive in the USA or wherever their destination may be and try to sell their crappy Argentine pesos for USD -- beyond Miami it can be very difficult to unload pesos. Brasil and Uruguay sure, but even my husband's uncle that went to Punta recently said that whereas a couple of years ago you could pay in ARS for pretty much anything, a lot of people don't even want to hear of it now -- USD only please... which is going to screw a lot of Argentines.

 

[syngirl]

The big problem is if I want to buy more dollars than what AFIP will allow me to purchase.

Say I have $10,000 pesos in my account and want to buy dollars and transfer them to my U$S account. If AFIP only authorizes U$S 500, for example, I'm still screwed. I can't touch the rest of my money from abroad.

It doesn't matter if you have 10k pesos, 20k pesos, or 150k pesos IN your account -- the formula that AFIP uses is to look at your declared monthly salary, takes away what it assumes to be your expenses for the month (not just declared expenses like rent but what they assume you need for food, clothing, entertainment etc), and then comes up with a magic figure as to how much you're allowed to buy in dollars. This works fantastically in favour of AFIP since they can greatly exagerrate whatever they assume to be your expenses in order to lower the amount of dollars your allowed. Doesn't matter if you have 80k pesos sitting in your account waiting to make a transaction, too effing bad for most people. This is why the real estate market was paralysed for a few weeks, and why there's a lot of people going through a lot of loopholes to buy properties. My mother-in-law as a jubilada is simply not allowed to buy any dollars at all at the moment.

This new regulation also screws people that are thinking to emigrate from the country -- how do they get their pesos out? Seeing these ridiculous types of restrictions coming in certainly has my family thinking to leave, though we may have to dump a lot of pesos in order to do so!

 

[syngirl]

Should be able to and actually are able to are very different things here as I'm sure you know. FWIW, I personally know of multiple people who were either denied permission to purchase dollars or given really low limits. And these are people who aren't in negro.

I think perma-tourists are actually in much better shape than the average Argentine. Get on a plane, fly to Miami (or London or wherever) and take out your 10,000 in USD from your bank account there and come back here. Or go across the border to Uruguay for a week or two and do the same via ATM. All perfectly legal and lord knows, you won't have trouble finding ways to change the money into pesos.

Yes most people I know who are making decent salaries are still approved at ridiculously low levels compared to their incomes -- ie 500, 1000 USD a month -- when real estate purchases are still in USD -- this makes even buying something en pozo hard since most monthly payments are higher than what they are approved to buy.

Going out of country and withdrawing 10k USD isn't going to work unless you're abroad for a long time -- daily limit withdrawal from your bank account when abroad is about 400 USD isn't it? I don't think you're allowed more even if you go into the bank and deal directly with the teller. So you're going to need 25 days abroad to withdraw 10k.

As of April 3 that is over and done with anyway, so between now and then there will be a lot of people doing it (including my husband who's got a few biz trips this month so will be withdrawing his limits).