IPRO UP – Ana Domínguez went to the ATM to withdraw money to pay for household expenses and do grocery shopping for her mother, who has not left her home for four months due to quarantine.
She withdrew 100 peso bills and some 500, and thought: “Why is it so difficult for me to give you 1,000 peso bills? It is not even 8 dollars when converting them to blue ”.
I was right. It is that the paper of greater denomination in Argentina ($ 1,000), if it is divided by the almost $ 130 that the informal green ticket quotes, means less than 8 dollars.
Meanwhile, if the conversion is made at the “solidarity” price, it would be only about $ 10.
For the time being, it is a squalid figure when compared to the purchasing power of hard currency of the largest denomination banknotes in other countries.
In the region
The Argentine “hornero” allows you to buy fewer dollars in relation to the banknotes with the highest purchasing power in various South American countries, namely:
Peru: 200 soles is equivalent to u $ s57
Uruguay: 2,000 Uruguayans is equal to $ 45
Colombia: the one of 100,000 Colombian pesos represents u $ s27
Chile: with 20,000 Chilean pesos u $ s25 are acquired
Brazil: 100 reais today is only equivalent to US $ 18, due to the sharp devaluation of recent months
Paraguay: a 100,000 guaraníes banknote is exchanged for $ 14
All cases exceed the relationship that exists in Argentina between the banknote with the largest denomination and its equivalent in dollars, whether at a blue or a “solidarity” price. Furthermore, taking into account the official, $ 13.5 would be obtained, even below the paper of 100,000 guaraníes.
It happens that the sharp depreciation that the peso suffered both in this year and in 2019 caused the ratio between the 1,000 bill and its dollar equivalent to be increasingly lower.
So much so that “it has already lost 85% of its value since its debut”, they point out from the consulting firm Libertad y Progreso. For now, there are more and more voices and demands –especially from the banks– for the Central Bank to issue a higher denomination banknote.
So far this year, the BCRA has already issued more than 1.35 trillion pesos to cover the fiscal deficit and finance subsidies such as the IFE (Emergency Family Income).
But there is more: only in June, the entity’s two printing plants put into circulation:
- 50 million $ 1,000 bills
- 2 million $ 500 bills
- 12 million $ 200 bills
- 540 million $ 100 bills
In this context, at the beginning of July an international tender was launched to print units of $ 500: 250 million banknotes that, once completed, will be turned over to circulation. And the importation of $ 1,000 papers from Brazil is very close to closing.
That was how the $ 5,000 one was once again among the trending discussion topics in the City. “President Alberto Fernández already said that it was studied and decided not to. So far no, there was no change to that decision, “officials respond to iProUP briefly about this possibility.
