Tourists leave hundreds of millions of dollars in Argentina

[gracielle]

Automatic Google Translation of entire article:
28 October 2022

Miguel Pesce cree que la desaparición de los billetes es irreversible

El presidente del Banco Central destacó que el 98,5% de los argentinos tiene una cuenta bancaria o de una billetera virtual.

www-perfil-com.translate.goog

...."The gradual disappearance of material money has already entered an irreversible path," assured the president of the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic (BCRA), Miguel Pesce. The assertion is based on the fact that in Argentina, "98.5% - almost the the entire adult population – has a bank account or a virtual wallet"....

 

[DK72]

Automatic Google Translation of entire article:
28 October 2022

Miguel Pesce cree que la desaparición de los billetes es irreversible

El presidente del Banco Central destacó que el 98,5% de los argentinos tiene una cuenta bancaria o de una billetera virtual.

www-perfil-com.translate.goog

...."The gradual disappearance of material money has already entered an irreversible path," assured the president of the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic (BCRA), Miguel Pesce. The assertion is based on the fact that in Argentina, "98.5% - almost the the entire adult population – has a bank account or a virtual wallet"....

Thanks for the article. It amazes me that the percentage (of those having a bank account) is so high. Hard to believe.

Even so, as long as there is
* blue rate
* sky high taxes which drives people into black market
* widespread corruption
there will also be cash.

It is going to be interesting to see what the new government (assuming FdT will lose) is going to do about the billetes. I suppose they will then finally print 5000 and 10'000 billetes. Even if that were not the case, people would simply switch to USD cash.

 

[lunar]

"98.5% - almost the the entire adult population – has a bank account or a virtual wallet"....

This number was higher in many European countries 5 years ago. Euro banknotes didn't go anywhere.

And before you can argue that something is irreversible, aren't you supposed to wait for it to end first?

 

[gracielle]

Thanks for the article. It amazes me that the percentage (of those having a bank account) is so high. Hard to believe.

Excerpt from the BA Times article, in English, which I posted at 9:36am:
....In a written response to a question on the possibility of incorporating bills of larger denominations, Central Bank Governor Miguel Pesce pointed to a figure that 98 percent of Argentine adults have a bank account. (World Bank data shows that figure at 71 percent)....

 

[FrankPintor]

This number was higher in many European countries 5 years ago. Euro banknotes didn't go anywhere.

And before you can argue that something is irreversible, aren't you supposed to wait for it to end first?

At least some European countries (Germany was one of them) oblige banks to open an account for any citizen who wants one, as part of the banking license conditions. Bank account use goes up also when governments mandate electronic payments for bonuses, subsidies, and so on, I think that was the case here in Argentina during the pandemic?

 

[elhombresinnombre]

Excerpt from the BA Times article, in English, which I posted at 9:36am:
....In a written response to a question on the possibility of incorporating bills of larger denominations, Central Bank Governor Miguel Pesce pointed to a figure that 98 percent of Argentine adults have a bank account. (World Bank data shows that figure at 71 percent)....

I agree with you Gracielle. That number is suspiciously high and on a par with the number of residents of Russian Occupied Territories in Ukraine who they claim voted to become part of Russia.

Do you have a link to your World Bank data? I am using a different source https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/percent_people_bank_accounts/ where they say that the World Bank figure for Argentina in 2017 was 47.92% which I find much more believable and more in proportion with other Latin American countries.

I am wondering if it could be a simple schoolboy error where they have taken the number of individual bank accounts rather than the number of individuals who hold bank accounts?

 

[gracielle]

Do you have a link to your World Bank data?

unfurl="true"]https://www.worldbank.org/en/public...ership has reached,it hovered for many years.[/URL]

 

[Quilombo]

This sounds like K INDEC numbers lol.

What are they doing, counting the total number in the country vs the population as a whole, including babies/children/people in their 90s? Because if that's the case then sure, I have like 6 virtual wallets/bank accounts myself so that would make sense using that metric, but I can tell you for damn sure the Whichi and related indigenous people up north that don't even speak Spanish or have DNIs aren't using MercadoPago.

 

[antipodean]

This number was higher in many European countries 5 years ago. Euro banknotes didn't go anywhere.

However most EU countries have pretty low limits on cash transactions, outlawing use of cash for transactions above such limits (eg €1000 in Spain and Portugal, €2000 in Italy etc) and in Greece until recently there were harsh limits on amounts of cash that can even be withdrawn from banks each month in part to prevent capital flight and in part to formalize the economy and get economically active persons onto the tax agencies radar.

The ECB also eliminated the €500 and €200 notes in an effort to further reduce the use of cash for high value transactions.

Anyway, having a high statistic on bank account ownership simply doesn’t do anything to formalize an economy or contribute in some positive way without broader regulations to limit the use of cash in undeclared transactions (that would result in making corruption harder, so can’t see any government or union/ social movement supporting such regulation any time soon….)