The surprising factor that motivates the trick of dollar deposits

“There is no evil that does not lead to good,” says a proverb. In fact, it is an attempt to convey an optimistic message in situations that, in principle, are not good. This can be said to be applicable to explain what has been happening in recent weeks Private deposits in dollars stashed in local banks.

That’s after a month and a half of drops (like nearly USD 1.2 billion or 7.2% of total reservations). Drainage has been moderate so far in May. Official figures recorded a drop of just US$32 million in the first 13 business days of the month, a paltry figure compared to the US$123 million left on April 26 alone, for example.

Unsurprisingly, even banks admit that part of the slowness shown by withdrawals (when the economic conditions that triggered them back on have changed practically nothing) is related to the reality limit they face: Inadequate availability of “large face” bills and reluctance of depositors to accept “small face” bills (issued before 1996) due to negative price differential imposed on the internal market -legal and parallel- for its marketing. .

All this unexpectedly, the US Federal Reserve took care to clarify a few months ago, and reiterated a few days ago, that both “large face” and “small face” bills are “legal” and therefore, the same, they should receive the same exchange value.

“The Federal Reserve Board recognizes that “Some countries may have different exchange rates or foreign currency acceptance policies, but the markets, not the US government, control these rates,” he noted on his website. All dollar bills printed from 1914 to today are legal tender And subsequent adjustments to the models should only be made with the need to make counterfeiting more difficult.

Nature created in this regard has a significant impact on psychotic behavior Depositors expect to pick up fresh bills at checkout and often find that this is not possible. (at least at that time) or they had to resign themselves to accepting at least a fraction of what was withdrawn in “small face” bills.

“This causes many customers to abandon or partially withdraw. They agree to spend another day to see if they find the bills they are looking for,” a teller from a leading private bank explained to this historian a few days ago.

“When I went to my bank, it happened to me: they explained to me that they only had a few ‘big heads’ for deposits and the rest of the withdrawals had to be made through ‘small face’ bills. . Otherwise, I had to speak to the account officer, so he “He would tell me a date and a branch where he could take ‘big face’ dollars, but I didn’t like the idea of ​​informing so many people about these movements – for obvious reasons – that day I got something back, and another day a little later, I left a part of what I thought I was taking into account”, another The depositor was bound to do. Withdrawal in “instalments”. For those situations.

A prevailing idea among selective depositors Return for peace of mind The lack of reserves expressed by the Central Bank (BCRA) and – occasionally – the fear that it may resort to reserve requirements to continue to intervene in the official market, in an attempt to avoid or continue to postpone exchange exposure, it does not have problems or possible discounts when they try to use their tickets.

“It has nothing to do with being taken out of here and replacing it with a small tree, they don’t want to get $470 for something that costs $492 in most cases, but with the idea of ​​not being affected,” they pointed out to another leading private bank. Removes the applicable 5% average.

In private banks Branches The most important companies in the country make it clear that the problems in fulfilling these requests with tickets in the last one and a half months are due to several factors. As is often the case, they are interpreting it on a case-by-case basis, even as they predict they will face a wave of recall when an election year begins. They didn’t expect it to go live with the advance it did. “This comes on the heels of a quieter month after more than US$1000 million was withdrawn between the end of July and August last year. [de ministros] In economics. “Perhaps this has made the importation of currency notes somewhat obsolete,” opines a company treasurer, adding that it takes a little over 15 days to carry out this type of operation, and represents a cost of 1.5%.

Additionally, they explain that customers who have made deposits in their accounts in foreign currency in recent months (The net income of the organization was more than US$1.9 billion between September and the end of March) Many times they did it with “small face” dollars. “They took the opportunity to get rid of those bills, but they’re very flexible when it comes to asking you for new ones on withdrawal,” they explain.

This is quite understandable, especially when analyzing the composition of private deposits in dollars maintained by local banks under management, which shows a very fragmented universe of customers. According to the latest report of the Consultora 1816, with data for the month of March, Although more than 14 million foreign currency accounts are registered with the local financial system, only half a million of them have balances above US$3,000.

At the same time, At the end of the month, 65% of the total shares of US$15.3 billion were owned by individuals (just over US$10 billion) and the remaining 35% (just over US$5 billion) were corporate deposits. There are only about 690 accounts of people holding more than a million dollars.