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"WhatsApp dollar": by the stocks, dollar sales passed from the bank to the chat groups

2020-02-06T21:37:22.365Z


To change savings in US currency, people now first consult family, friends and colleagues in search of a buyer. And both achieve a better price. The cause: in the official circuit they pay $ 58 for each "green", and to acquire it costs $ 82.


Martín Grosz

02/06/2020 - 18:01

  • Clarín.com
  • Society

The best known are the official dollar, the parallel or blue and the dollar savings or card (aka "solidarity", with 30% surcharge). There is also talk of the Netflix dollar (for digital services, with 8% tax), future dollar, stock dollar, dollar counted with liquidation ... The list of quotes for the US currency seemed already endless, but there is still room for one more . One that, although it is difficult to measure and average, is gaining ground rapidly among the middle class.

Some already named as "dollar office" or "WhatsApp dollar" and that agreed in an increasing number of exchange operations previously done in the formal financial system, but now - "super trap" looking mediante- exchange settle among family, friends, neighbors and coworkers, with better conditions for everyone.

"I have a few dollars to sell, does anyone need? " Phrases like those are the ones that set the circuit in motion. They are pronounced at their place of work or written in chat groups by people who, after having saved in foreign currency, now need to get rid of some green bills to face summaries of post-vacation cards and other expenses in pesos.

Until December, the vast majority of those savers would have gone to the bank or to an exchange office, or would have made the transaction in seconds by "home banking". Now, however, almost no one would think of that. Because in the official circuit they would only receive $ 58 for each dollar, a value almost 30% lower than the $ 82 that governs to acquire the ticket in those same windows, for adding the "country tax" to the official quotation.

That is what is leading those who have dollars to sell to poll among their contacts until they find someone who is just interested in buying the "greens" to save - by buzzing the official cap of US $ 200 a month - or to spend on the outside at a lower cost than "card" and then pay the summary in pesos with 30% surcharge.

"I've never seen anything like that. In WhatsApp groups, among family and friends, savers start offering the dollars they need to sell. Many had bought them last year, without the stocks, and maybe they also took them out of the bank after STEP: Now they need to change them to make ends meet and, logically, they try to do it informally, because they warn that, if they go to the bank, they would lose a lot of money, "says Sandra González, president of the Adecua user entity.

Thus, once the seller and buyer manage to meet, what they negotiate is an exchange rate with which both win -today around $ 75 or $ 76- , sometimes taking the “blue” value as a guide, although not Always copying it.

Something like this happened this week, for example, in a microcenter office. Marcela needed to sell US $ 200 and asked her office mates if anyone wanted to buy them. Lucia, who works with her and plans to fly to the United States at the end of the month, did not miss the opportunity. He paid $ 15,200 , at a change of $ 76 per dollar. "For home banking they would have cost me $ 16,300, and I could not have bought them because my quota for the month has already exhausted me," says Clarín Lucia, who asks not to be identified. In January, both had a similar operation, and Marcela already warned that she must soon sell US $ 200 more.

Between dollars and pesos, Argentines seek to preserve the value of their money.

"Informal exchange operations grew a lot because they became convenient both for those who need to buy dollars and for those who need to sell them," summarizes Gabriel Caamaño Gómez, an economist at the consultancy Ledesma. "The buying and evades paying tax PAIS, accessing a lower price to $ 80. And it sells, will the blue or looking for a name that you buy because you get to get paid more. With whatever price they agree between $ 60 and $ 80, the two win. "

For many, the resource was saving. As for Fernando and María, a couple of young professionals with a preschooler and a mortgage loan that they pay with effort. They managed to save in 2019 about US $ 600 for their vacations in the country. And at the end of the year, prior to departure, they began asking among acquaintances in search of a buyer, something they had never done before . "If the dollars in the bank had changed, the money would not have reached us for the trip," they stand out now.

"Except for a very uninformed tourist, it is difficult for someone to sell a dollar at the official price today. Look better for a friend, an acquaintance, a friend of a friend who needs to buy, and they agree on an intermediate price between the buying tip and the parallel dollar selling tip. And if they don't get anyone, they turn to gadgets like going to a 'cave' or looking for a 'little tree' in the Microcenter, "says Nicolás Litvinoff, a personal finance specialist and director of Estudinero.org.

"The last thing that people do, if they don't get anyone known, is to go to the 'caves' that have emerged in almost every neighborhood. But it 's illegal . There are fake bills going around and many end up being scammed," Gonzalez warns. , of Adecua. In those areas, in addition, there is another against: the oldest dollars are not well received.

"Today there are caves that even make home deliveries . But beware, because many types of dollars - the oldest ones - are not accepted or take them at a lower value," explains Mariano Otálora, director of the Argentine School of Personal Finance. The discount for seniority can be up to 7% , on purchase prices that are around $ 75 today.

Otálora recalls that, to buy and sell dollars without a cap and at a market price, there is a legal channel for the saver: the so-called "dollar bag" or MEP . But it requires an operation that for many can be complex and sophisticated.

Otálora explains that, in order to sell dollars like this, it is necessary to take out - without charge - an account in a stockbroker , transfer the dollars to be sold there, use them to buy bonds (such as AY24 or AO20) and then sell them in pesos and withdraw them . By obstacles imposed recently, this operation takes five business days and carries the risk that, at that time, with negotiations under development by external debt, the price of varying degrees sensitive and unpredictably. And with it, the final price of the operation.

Source: clarin

All life articles on 2020-02-06

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