At work, we had another eventful day today, meeting the founder of Puerta 18, Laura Benbenaste. More about work will come next week. This posting today is dedicated to MONEY!
Argentina suffers quite a bit from inflation. When I was in the country for the first time in 2001, the Peso (ARS) rate was fixed to the US-Dollar - resulting in 1 ARS = 1 USD. I was back in the country in 2003, and during that time, you already got 4 to 5 Pesos per Dollar. As the economy was still rough, inflation stayed high - and today, you get 16 Pesos for 1 Euro, or something between 14 and 15 Pesos per US-Dollar.
Starting with the economic crisis in 2001/2, the access to cash was quite strictly limited - authorities mainly wanted to prevent that the citizens drained too much money out of the country. Somehow, the effect of restricting the amount of cash for withdrawals and making money exchange more difficult still can be experienced today.
For us as travellers, this means that you usually always run low on cash. From an ATM, you usually can only withdraw quite small amounts of Pesos, as e.g. 2000 ARS (~120 Euro). Still, it can happen that the machine runs low on cash and won't give anything to you or allow you to withdraw only 1000 ARS.
The latest peak in the inflation was as recent as December 2015. The Peso fell from 10 ARS per 1 Euro to 16 ARS per 1 Euro. The government did not react with printing any larger bills since then. Hence you always feel like in a game of Monopoly - handling large amounts of 100 ARS bills, which is the largest bill in the country. I have heard that plans exist to introduce new bills of 200, 500 and 1000 Pesos - which absolutely makes sense. However, already now, you might be frowned at when paying with a 100 ARS bill - not everyone is happy if he or she should change such a bill for you!
Why don't I pay with credit card all the time? Well, I try to! But you should always have sufficient cash - failures in the network are frequent, and every once in a while, you won't be able to pay by credit card!
As the withdrawal from ATMs usually is quite expensive - for example, HSBC charges 87 ARS for a foreign withdrawal, irrespective of the amount - you might consider exchanging money. But this, too, might result in a small adventure. First, make sure to bring your passport with the stamp from immigrations. No other ID will do as a non-Argentine resident!! Next, hope that they will accept your bills. One money exchange might refuse large bills such as 100 USD. Another might refuse those and insist on small bills. Of course, you will always have brought just the wrong type! And expect to wait very long! Our latest experience with the money exchange in the Abasto Shopping Center (close to Puerta 18) was quite strange: At least four idle persons were inside the exchange booth - and still, our colleague Janice had to wait almost 15 minutes to finally be assisted!
Argentina suffers quite a bit from inflation. When I was in the country for the first time in 2001, the Peso (ARS) rate was fixed to the US-Dollar - resulting in 1 ARS = 1 USD. I was back in the country in 2003, and during that time, you already got 4 to 5 Pesos per Dollar. As the economy was still rough, inflation stayed high - and today, you get 16 Pesos for 1 Euro, or something between 14 and 15 Pesos per US-Dollar.
Starting with the economic crisis in 2001/2, the access to cash was quite strictly limited - authorities mainly wanted to prevent that the citizens drained too much money out of the country. Somehow, the effect of restricting the amount of cash for withdrawals and making money exchange more difficult still can be experienced today.
For us as travellers, this means that you usually always run low on cash. From an ATM, you usually can only withdraw quite small amounts of Pesos, as e.g. 2000 ARS (~120 Euro). Still, it can happen that the machine runs low on cash and won't give anything to you or allow you to withdraw only 1000 ARS.
The latest peak in the inflation was as recent as December 2015. The Peso fell from 10 ARS per 1 Euro to 16 ARS per 1 Euro. The government did not react with printing any larger bills since then. Hence you always feel like in a game of Monopoly - handling large amounts of 100 ARS bills, which is the largest bill in the country. I have heard that plans exist to introduce new bills of 200, 500 and 1000 Pesos - which absolutely makes sense. However, already now, you might be frowned at when paying with a 100 ARS bill - not everyone is happy if he or she should change such a bill for you!
Why don't I pay with credit card all the time? Well, I try to! But you should always have sufficient cash - failures in the network are frequent, and every once in a while, you won't be able to pay by credit card!
As the withdrawal from ATMs usually is quite expensive - for example, HSBC charges 87 ARS for a foreign withdrawal, irrespective of the amount - you might consider exchanging money. But this, too, might result in a small adventure. First, make sure to bring your passport with the stamp from immigrations. No other ID will do as a non-Argentine resident!! Next, hope that they will accept your bills. One money exchange might refuse large bills such as 100 USD. Another might refuse those and insist on small bills. Of course, you will always have brought just the wrong type! And expect to wait very long! Our latest experience with the money exchange in the Abasto Shopping Center (close to Puerta 18) was quite strange: At least four idle persons were inside the exchange booth - and still, our colleague Janice had to wait almost 15 minutes to finally be assisted!
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| Even being first in the line might result in a waiting time of 15 minutes |
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| Bills can be totally worn and ugly - or quite new. |
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| With the bills of 100 Pesos (~6 Euro, ~7 US-Dollars) being the largest ones, you carry LOTS of bills - feels like being quite prosperous or rather playing a game of Monopoly |
