Government deposits at the Central Bank fell last Friday following the payment of debt maturities in pesos that failed to be renewed in the last tender of the Ministry of Finance and, as anticipated. They were in the $ 5 billion zone. The drop was $ 1.43 billion Regarding the previous wheel, as consigned in the official BCRA clues, which are published with some lag days.
In recent weeks, The evolution of the account in pesos that the treasure has in the monetary authority is closely followed in the City. It is that these deposits function as the “liquidity mattress” of the Treasury to guarantee investors the repayment of debt maturities in pesos that are not refinanced in the auctions of the Ministry of Economy.
The doubts of the market and the government signal
The shrinking of that reservation unleashed doubts in the market about possible problems for the financial program by Luis Caputo and, mainly, about the impact it could have on rates Of interest to the economy in case that mattress is exhausted, given the rigidity of the top imposed by the economic team for the broad monetary base (BMA).
Since last week, officials sought to scare that uncertainty. First, They affirmed that in reality the liquidity mattress is superior to what the treasure has in its account in the BCRA; Something in which the City consultants agreed, given the deposits that the treasury also has in commercial banks product of the fiscal surplus. Out of what is usually used to face everyday expenses, consulting firm 1816 estimated last week that there could be about $ 4 or 5 billion available to add to the liquidity reserve.
However, then, the economic team took another step. In search of exhibiting that greater “solvency”, Last Thursday they transferred $ 2.2 billion to their account in the central banks in commercial banks. This means that, in reality, the alleged availability of treasure in commercial banks (which are estimated based on the latest official data, dating from November) today are almost half.
The movement between accounts was made knowing that, a day later, the payment of the $ 1.4 billion not renewed in the first debt tender in the treasury of February would undermine the stock of government deposits in the BCRA. If there had not existed that anchorage, the level of April 2024 would have even drilled.
Yet, The Treasury Pesos account in the monetary authority fell to $ 5.05 billion on Friday. Depending on the latest movements, It could be calculated that to that amount about $ 3 billion would be added Available that the central administration would have in commercial banks, outside the money that is needed to use as working capital.
Debt, Liquidity and Monetary Plan
The truth is that The market continues to see challenges for monetary administration. In particular, because within the framework of a growing credit demand by their clients, banks tend not to renew all their treasure titles When they beat. This is what Caputo usually calls as “crowding in” or “anker point.”
Among other issues, This makes finances achieve in its low tenders percentages of “rollover” and that the treasury has to take advantage of an increasingly small liquidity mattress to cancel all the debt commitments in local currency.
“In the tender on Wednesday, February 12, the treasure achieved a ‘rollover’ of 78%, validating rates above the market curve. This shows challenges faced by the Government in a restricted liquidity contextwhere the growing demand for liquidity by the banks has led them to prefer to position themselves in Lefi, whose performance exceeds that of almost the entire fixed rate curve, ”said the firm Bavsa In a report for your customers.
In any case, following the existence of the extra deposits that the Treasury has in commercial banks, Bavsa considered that, although “restricted liquidity conditions persist in the system, this gives the Treasury a Margin to resort to these deposits in case of a low ‘rollover’ scenario in the next tenders ”.
But, despite the fact that the market now detects that there is a higher ceiling to face debt maturities in pesos, Doubts persist with respect to the future of the monetary program.
It happens that, in July last year, The BCRA established a limit for the amount of pesos in the economy. He defined that the broad monetary base (BMA) should remain stable at $ 47.7 billion. The BMA, according to that definition, is composed of the traditional monetary base (circulating money and lace of the local currency deposits), plus the government deposits in the central and the Lefi stock held by the banks. The Lefi are the letters issued by the Treasury (to replace the remunerated liabilities of the BCRA), which the monetary authority uses to regulate the liquidity of the system through purchase-sale operations with the financial entities.
If the treasure pays debt with its deposits in commercial banks, “the Lefi stock will lower (Public banks buy with government deposits) instead of lowering the treasury deposits in the central one, ”said 1816. He added: “For the broad monetary base (BMA) it is the same.”
The question that analysts ask, so it is still What will happen when the liquidity matt. The 1816 consultant considered that the economic team could buy some margin with a change in the lace policy, but that this would allow him to stretch the problem a few months.
In this way, he stated that the growing nominal requirement of monetary base makes us “Increasingly closer to the government being forced at (i) flexible (allowing the economy to be remunerate in pesos against the purchase of dollars) oa (ii) maintain that limit but thoroughly going with their attempt that the population begins to ‘go to the supermarket’ with dollars “. And warned that, if the wide base stock, If people continue to transaction mostly in pesos, we will see “growing pressures on the real rate (The Treasury will have to pay more and more at the auctions) ”.
For 1816there is a problem. A higher real rate “can help lower inflation, but potentially also It can affect the level of activity and influence the perception of the market on the sustainability of public debt in local currency (even with fiscal surplus), ”he concluded.
Source: Ambito
