Special dollar account for tourists

[SecretShopper]

This only make sense for the permatourist, someone who is here for many months or years and wants to have a card to use.

The casual one or two week tourist, forget about it.

I damn sure won't be doing this when I get there. And I'll be in Argentina for awhile.

 

[ventanilla]

El Banco Central habilita cuentas de ahorro para turistas extranjeros | Podrán cambiar sus dólares al tipo de cambio del MEP

El Banco Central (BCRA) dio luz verde a la apertura de cajas de ahorro en pesos y en dólares para los turistas que visiten la Argentina. La operatoria quedará habilitada en todos los bancos y el objetivo es doble: facilitarles medios electrónicos nacio...

www.pagina12.com.ar

Tourists and other non-resident foreigners can now open a special bank account. It gives a local debit card and you can only deposit money in dollars from a foreign account or in cash. You get a special rate that is lower than the blue but not by much (180:1 right now vs 195:1 for the blue). When you close the account any remaining money is sent back to your foreign account automatically.
Seems pretty useful for anyone without too much physical dollars to exchange or who does not like to use cash.

 

[sneakrnet]

El Banco Central habilita cuentas de ahorro para turistas extranjeros | Podrán cambiar sus dólares al tipo de cambio del MEP

El Banco Central (BCRA) dio luz verde a la apertura de cajas de ahorro en pesos y en dólares para los turistas que visiten la Argentina. La operatoria quedará habilitada en todos los bancos y el objetivo es doble: facilitarles medios electrónicos nacio...

www.pagina12.com.ar

Tourists and other non-resident foreigners can now open a special bank account. It gives a local debit card and you can only deposit money in dollars from a foreign account or in cash. You get a special rate that is lower than the blue but not by much (180:1 right now vs 195:1 for the blue). When you close the account any remaining money is sent back to your foreign account automatically.
Seems pretty useful for anyone without too much physical dollars to exchange or who does not like to use cash.

Try to keep up with the rest of the class.

 

[Rich One]

There is a much bigger problem with all of this.

The tourists don't automatically get a rate of 180. (At least according to the articles published about this so far.)

The person who wants this rate must additionally investigate and open an investment account in Argentina (a cuenta comitente), transfer dollars to this account, buy Argentine bonds in dollars, sell them in pesos, then transfer the money back to the peso account. (And, of course, they have to learn about how to do all of these things. Correctly. And hope that they don't run into problems. What a fun way to pass a vacation!)

As published in above articles.. To obtain the $180 dollar exchange rate. Tourists must open online a dollar/peso Caja de Ahorro Account to make dollar transfers to the account!

 

[antipodean]

As published in above articles.. To obtain the $180 dollar exchange rate. Tourists must open online a dollar/peso Caja de Ahorro Account to make dollar transfers to the account!

I will add that the bond buying and selling is probably done by the bank, the same way as normal CCL products with some private banks work for residents. The client simply makes a transfer to a bank account of the bank who then takes care of the rest.

 

[Dougie]

You really think a "permatourist," who knows how things work here, is going to go to all that trouble, and regularly receive a lot less money for doing so?

I wouldn't do it personally.

My thought was why go through all that trouble for one week. Maybe someone who is here long term really wants a card to use from some reason.

 

[Sequoia1321]

El Gobierno les permitirá a los turistas extranjeros vender sus dólares a 180 pesos

El Banco Central creó la “caja de ahorro para turistas”, únicamente para residentes en el exterior. Al mismo tiempo, los argentinos que venden sus dólares en el mercado oficial reciben solamente 99 pesos

www.infobae.com

Tourists will be allowed to open bi-currency accounts in Argentina from abroad to use while here. The idea is to let them access the MEP or similar to buy pesos to put them and their cash inside the system. The account can have up to US$5000, however cannot receive any local deposits (except those made in USD in cash at a branch) or make bank-bank transfers to others nor access products like credit cards or fixed term deposits etc. Banks are not obliged to provide this service so will need to shop around to find who offers it once it launches.

It sounds like the account needs to be closed when you leave Argentina/ your stay is up... although not sure how this would be managed in practice.

Los turistas podrán abrir la cuenta en la modalidad no presencial o a su arribo al país y la identificación de los titulares se efectuará mediante el pasaporte o documento de viaje. La cuenta deberá estar a nombre de una persona humana residente en el exterior”, explicó el BCRA en su comunicado.

Agregó que las cuentas “podrán utilizarse para compras en comercios en pesos en el país, tanto mediante tarjeta de débito como a través de aplicaciones de banca digital” y para retirar pesos en efectivo. No admitirán depósitos, transferencias de terceros ni su utilización para realizar inversiones.

¿Cómo cargarán su dinero los extranjeros en sus “Caja de ahorro para turistas”? A través de dos vías: haciendo una transferencia desde una cuenta de su país de origen o un depósito de dólares en efectivo. El tope para ese saldo será de 5.000 dólares. En caso de que tenga dinero al momento de finalizar su estadía en la Argentina, deberá transferirlo a la cuenta en el país de origen antes de cerrarla, no pudiéndose efectuar retiros de moneda extranjera en efectivo.

Facilitan a turistas el ingreso de divisas y el manejo de sistemas electrónicos de pago

Los turistas extranjeros que visiten Argentina podrán abrir una caja de ahorro bimonetaria y acceder a los servicios financieros y medios electrónicos de pago.

www.bcra.gob.ar

I am curious to know what this could mean for WU rates etc and also if this is an ominous sign of things to come (tighter controls of money coming in, inflation/ devaluation exploding meaning digital transactions needed because not enough cash supply etc)

Wow. Great find. This sounds interesting. This might solve the issue I raised in another thread of how to pay in Argentina, where it seemed the only blue rate option available for someone without a DNI was cash. I’m very interested in this because it hopefully allows me to pay with a card or QR code instead of cash, while at the same time get a closer rate to the blue rate. The 5K sum is also exactly how much cash I imagine I would bring with me. Is this available now? Would like to know more about it. Can I bring some cash with me as well? Can I top it off from my USA account as the money in it runs out? Sounds like a dream come true, hopefully.

 

[antipodean]

Wow. Great find. This sounds interesting. This might solve the issue I raised in another thread of how to pay in Argentina, where it seemed the only blue rate option available for someone without a DNI was cash. I’m very interested in this because it hopefully allows me to pay with a card or QR code instead of cash, while at the same time get a closer rate to the blue rate. The 5K sum is also exactly how much cash I imagine I would bring with me. Is this available now? Would like to know more about it. Can I bring some cash with me as well? Can I top it off from my USA account as the money in it runs out? Sounds like a dream come true, hopefully.

It’s just been made “possible” so now we need to wait for banks to actually offer it and provide more details on how it will work in practice. Would imagine it will take some weeks/ months for the banks who want to offer it to set it all up internally. So watch this space.

As for bringing cash, no reason why not. Up to US$10.000 without needing to declare it upon arrival. (Just in case there are issues with the bank, the same issues we all face from time to time, I’d suggest you MUST bring cash back-up as well if going down this path.)

 

[Somewhereinba]

Only Argentina could come up with such a dumb idea and think it might actually work.. The last thing I would ever think of doing when travelling to a country is jump through all sorts of forms and shit to open a bank account. Anyone who can use google will continue to bring dollars and sell them on the streets or via friends here. The rest who are not interested in going that route will not bother trying to save money on the exchange rate either. My biggest pet peeve here is how much the scum banks charge for ATM withdrawals - talk about robbing you blind. Last time I had to do it in an emergency it was something like 7-8$ USD per transaction and the limit per transaction was like $50 USD or some shit like that.. Thieving bastards - fuck the banks.

 

[gracielle]

1 Nov 2021 by Mariano Gorodisch

Dólar blue hoy mata al turista: por qué bancos se echan para atrás

Sólo los públicos lo harían, ya que no es obligatorio. Demandaría una inversión en desarrollo de más de $ 3 millones que estiman no se recuperará

www.cronista.com

New Central Bank measure is optional. Dollar for tourists: banks rule out its implementation. Only the public ones would do it, since it is not mandatory. It would require a development investment of more than $3 million, which they estimate will not be recovered....