He September 30bank deposits in dollars from the private sector another US$557 million rose and reached US$31,446 millionaccording to data from the Central Bank. Thus, at the end of September, For the first time since the outbreak of convertibility, they exceeded the level of reserves gross of the BCRA: that day they stood at US$27,167 million after falling almost US$2,000 million in a single wheel.
This way, Since the beginning of laundering, this type of deposits have accumulated a growth of US$12,839 million. With the extension of the asset regularization regime, AdCap estimated that the increase “should reach US$16 billion by the end of October (when the first stage closes) being conservative.”
To size the increase, it is worth saying that one year ago (September 29, 2023) private deposits in dollars were less than half: US$14,938 million. On the other hand, in August 2019, they amounted to US$32,492 million. That level will possibly be surpassed during this week.
However, although it is still considerable, in the last few rounds the strong pace of income from money laundering has slowed down. With the US$557 million that private deposits in dollars added up on Monday, It was the “third consecutive day of decline in the growth rate”highlighted the economist Salvador Vitelliby Romano Group.
Laundering, deposits and reserves
The fact that it has exceeded the level of the BCRA’s gross international holdings reflects that The banks have retained in their branches the bulk of the banknotes received for laundering. The entities wanted to have that liquidity available waiting for October 1, the day on which people who regularized up to US$100,000 could begin withdrawing the deposited bills at no cost. Those who laundered more than that figure, to withdraw them, have to pay a 5% fine.
Although it’s only been two days and it’s still early to draw conclusions, Vitelli told Ámbito that he does not see a generalized dynamic of dollar outflow from banks. “Some are going to withdraw, but calm down. And others are not in a hurry at all. For now, I do not see an imminent mass withdrawal,” he said.
Progressively, in recent days, they have begun to send part of these currencies to the monetary authority as reserve requirements. Although, as usually happens at the end of each month due to adjustments by the entities to the levels imposed by banking regulation, on the last day of September reserve requirements fell by US$1.6 billion.
Thus, that day, gross reserves decreased from US$1,995 million to US$27,167 million and were US$404 million below the level they had before the laundering began despite the strong increase in deposits. It is expected that in the next rounds the flow of reserve requirements will help the growth of the BCRA’s gross holdingsFor example, by this Wednesday they had already recovered up to US$29,138 million.
However, no such impact on net reserves is expected, which today are negative by more than US$5,000 million. This will only take place to the extent that those who engage in laundering pay the 5% fine (although they have many alternatives to avoid it), if bank loans in foreign currency to companies grow a lot or if the Government eventually decides to recycle the laundered dollars to through the issuance of short-term debt (such as the Letes in dollars, which were placed by Caputo during the Macrismo and then reprofiled by Hernán Lacunza in the same mandate), an alternative with which some voices in the city began to speculate.
Source: Ambito
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