After leading a strong and sustained recovery since the dawn of the libertarian government, the latest data seem to show a certain stagnation of private deposits in dollars. At least this is what happened in the first part of the month where The stock of the so-called argentólares barely grows by US$21 million.
The total stock of argendollars as of June 13, the latest data from the Central Bank (BCRA), amounted to $17.68 billion. You have to go back to the end of April 2020 to see a similar level. This stock also implies that since the change of government there has been an increase in absolute terms of no less than US$3,554 million and so far this year of US$1,879 million.
Therefore, it could be interpreted that a little less than half of that sum would be linked to tax reasons. However, as usually happens in the middle of the new calendar year, on this occasion the new deposits that were created to avoid paying taxes did not leave and remained in the system.
But the important thing is that in addition to those US$1,675 million that entered the banking system last December, after the change of government, so far this year they have continued to grow, generating not only greater loanable capacity to banks but also having the consequent correlation on the BCRA’s international reserves.. Hence the relevance of the behavior of the Argentólars.
When analyzing the recent evolution, a certain slowdown in growth is perceived between the end of April and the beginning of last May, when the daily average showed an increase of only 0.10% from one week to the next. But then it seemed to revive and they began to grow again at a rate of between 0.30% and 0.50% daily average. Which in the second half of May rose to 0.70%, reaching levels of US$17.6 billion daily average.
Starting in the first week of June, the weekly growth rate fell to 0.16% daily average which was maintained in the second as well. So the monthly average was below US$17.7 billion.
In the meantime, the bonanza that the banks experienced with the increase in the argendollars, together with the better business climate that translated into an increase in the parities of sovereign bonds and in the prices of local shares, gave rise to a strong reactivation of private loans in dollars.
The behavior of private loans
So far this year, the stock of private loans in dollars has increased by more than $3 billionrecovering levels of US$6.4 billion, similar to those of July 2020 in the midst of the pandemic.
It is worth noting that after the convertibility debacle, these loans can only be channeled to applicants who are exporters, that is, who have a flow of foreign currency in their businesses or are linked to the export sector, so that there is no mismatch of coins between the loan and the borrower’s income.
But in addition, argendollars have a significant role in the BCRA’s reserves since the reserves of these private deposits (the portion that banks cannot lend) are computed within the stock of the monetary entity’s gross reserves. Therefore, when deposits rise, reserves improve and vice versa. It should be noted that recently the financial system had a large idle capacity lendable in dollars due to uncertainty, despite the lack of demand and the fall in deposits.
We will have to continue monitoring not only the future of the Argentollars, whether they grow again or not, and whether the banks continue to place surpluses in new loans in dollars, which feeds back into the BCRA’s reserves.
Source: Ambito
