Distraught by false rumor, thousands of Argentines withdraw their dollars from banks

A woman withdrawing Argentine pesos in Buenos Aires on November 4.

The price of the dollar on the informal market, the famous “blue”, is currently reaching records in the country.

AFP - JUAN MABROMATA

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

In Argentina, thousands of people withdrew their dollar savings from banks last week.

A rumor circulating on social networks announced the imminent implementation of severe restrictions on dollar withdrawals.

False information that awoke the specter of the economic, political and social crisis of December 2001.

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With our correspondent in Buenos Aires,

Rumor has sent Argentina back twenty years.

A message shared hundreds of times on WhatsApp first, then on Facebook and Twitter, warned of the imminent return of the "corralito", these restrictions on dollar withdrawals put in place in December 2001 to slow down the race for liquidity and capital flight in a context of crisis.

Exactly two decades ago, this measure sparked a widespread social anger, which ended in fiercely suppressed protests and the resignation of the government and the president.

Distraught at the idea of ​​reliving this nightmare and of being once again cut off from their savings, thousands of Argentines, many of them small savers, therefore took their dollars out of their bank accounts to put them in the shelter under their mattresses.

In all, nearly $ 500 million, 3% of the country's private savings, were withdrawn between Monday and Thursday, according to the latest official figures.

►Read also: Argentina takes measures to try to limit the escape of dollars

Faced with this start of panic, the Central Bank issued a press release last week to deny the rumor of new restrictions, and to clarify that banks' foreign currency liquidity reserves have never been so high.

The institution nevertheless had to send more than $ 100 million in cash to banks to prevent any risk of physical shortage.

If the pace of withdrawals has fallen since then, the reaction of many Argentines to this rumor underlines how much the trauma of the 2001 crisis is still remembered today.

For Spanish speakers, the @ Diciembre_2001 account offers you to (re) experience the crisis 🇦🇷 of December 2001 "live", day by day, hour by hour, as if you were there.

And that's great faithttps: //t.co/4l7gLX5871

- Théo Conscience (@TheoConscience) December 2, 2021

►RFI archive: Words of Argentines, the culture of the crisis (2014)

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