By Annika Backe
Translated by Sylvia Karges
March 24, 2016 – For a long time, Argentina has been fighting the devaluation of its peso, which in 2015 amounted to 28%. This high inflation is the reason for introducing new banknotes of higher denomination until 2017.
The Argentine central bank announced in an official statement: “The introduction of new banknotes with higher denominations is needed due to practical reasons: ATMs will function better and the cost for the distribution of currency will be lowered”.
At the same time the bank will continue to encourage cashless payment transactions.
Up to now the 100 peso bill presented to highest banknote. It is worth about 7.4 US Dollars. That’s not a lot, especially when keeping in mind that it is common in Argentina to pay for your car in cash. It’s not surprising then, when, for example, many Argentineans stand in line at ATMs for nothing because their need of cash can’t be met by the dispensing machines.
As a countermeasure 200 and 500 peso bills were introduced this year. And starting in 2017, Argentineans will also be able to pay with a 1,000 peso bill.
Politically utilizable personalities such as Eva Peron have served their purpose. Instead, the new bills display indigenous animals of different parts of the country, for example the jaguar.
Being surrounded by states with the same problems, Argentina has vowed to get to work on revitalizing its economy and to lower inflation to 5 % by 2019. If the latest measure will be suitable to archive this ambitious goal, will soon be revealed.
Take a look a the new banknotes here.
Read a commentary about the introduction of the new bills here.
Read here about a different approach, currently applied by Zimbabwe.