- Thread starter SantiagoDR
- Start date
Historical Exchange Rates per U.S. Government
Why should I care what the exchange rate is in other parts of the world? What counts is what I can get here.
57.75 at Caribe Express in Moca.
Sent money this morning from the US to cover some future expenses for my house there. Specifically checked the box requesting dollars be delivered. They of course send pesos @ 57 thinking no one will say anything. After a plea to accept pesos, it is rejected, and they finally return with dollars in small denominations. When asked the current exchange rate....the driver indicates 57.75.
More importantly, and further confirming my suspicions, there is a shortage of dollars on the Island. They have never brought to my house US 5's and 10's when paying in dollars...........ever.
Respectfully,
Playacaribe2
The official rate a BC is 55.50. I have accounts at Banco Santa Cruz and BHD and I can get more than that changing money online with them and do even better if I go to my banks and change a thousand or more - close to the 58 I got at CaribeExpress.
When even the banks are paying more than the official rate(by quite a bit), I would agree, there seems to be shortage of dollars here.
The official buy/sell rate is 55.4 to buy your dollars and 55.5 to sell you dollars. It is an unrealistic "official wish list" as that spread is too tight to even be realistic. But it is the "official" published rate. Of course, then there is the reality.
If you could actually buy dollars for 55.5, you would have people doing an arbitrage between the Cambio's rate and the BC rate. By way of example, I could have gotten 57.75 pesos per dollar yesterday. And this morning, if I could take those pesos and buy dollars at the "official" rate of 55.5, I would have just picked up an additional 2+ pesos for that exchange. My clients, who regularly change large amounts of dollars into pesos and vice versa, could make a nice living just exploiting that spread.................if it were real.......but it is not.
Try finding dollars to buy at the "official" exchange rate.
Respectfully,
Playacaribe2
Let's hope that type of decline never happens again in the DR.
The Dominican peso is weak...............but not Argentinian peso or Venezuelan bolivar weak.
Respectfully,
Playacaribe2
kudos; there might be 9 people on here that can use "arbitrage" in a sentence
Some local items may end up being
a little less expensive but i don't see this having a major impact on the quality of life down here for expats/ making life "easier".
All very true. The point I was trying to make, and I've been changing dollars here once or twice a month for 14 years, I have never seen the bank rates for buying pesos higher than that at BC until recently. Some of the cambios have at times come close, or even matched the BC rate, and on a few rare occasions have beat it by maybe 0.10. That makes me suspect there is a shortage of dollars. Add to that the fact that my banks are limiting dollar withdrawals - I think $1000/day(?).
It would be interesting to see what would happen if you actually went to BC. I'm sure they would be glad to give you 54.4 for your dollars, but they're not going to sell you dollars for 55.5.
Yesterday around 1.30 pm casa de cambio wrote me message that buy rate reached 59.
It's been going up peso a week for the past 3 weeks.
Few days ago I found a very coherent article on non-main-news website, which goes into a great detail explaining the hikes. So a really professionally written article, not just some federation of merchants head complaining about rising dollar and affect on prices.
COVID-19, pago de deuda, préstamos, importaciones e incertidumbre: los ingredientes de los nervios del dólar
El mercado cambiario dominicano opera bajo un esquema de “flotación sucia”, consistente en un sistema en que el Banco Central de la República Dominicana (BCRD) interviene ocasionalmente con el objetivo de conducir el valor de la divisa hacia arriba o hacia abajo....
www.telenord.com.do
Yesterday around 1.30 pm casa de cambio wrote me message that buy rate reached 59.
It's been going up peso a week for the past 3 weeks.
Few days ago I found a very coherent article on non-main-news website, which goes into a great detail explaining the hikes. So a really professionally written article, not just some federation of merchants head complaining about rising dollar and affect on prices.
COVID-19, pago de deuda, préstamos, importaciones e incertidumbre: los ingredientes de los nervios del dólar
El mercado cambiario dominicano opera bajo un esquema de “flotación sucia”, consistente en un sistema en que el Banco Central de la República Dominicana (BCRD) interviene ocasionalmente con el objetivo de conducir el valor de la divisa hacia arriba o hacia abajo....
And the "official" Banco Central rate is now 55.5 to buy and 55.6 to sell.
Given your message from the cambio, the unofficial buy/sell spread is widening..............and that is rarely a good thing.....and portends the economy is weakening rapidly, or dollars are scarce...............and perhaps as is more likely the case.........both.
Hopefully not to many people bought peso certificates because of the "high" rate of interest................because they are now witnessing the start of the death of their money.
Respectfully,
Playacaribe2
Further confirmation of the current shortage of dollars;
dominicantoday.com
For as long as I can remember, when the government announces there is no shortage of dollars.................there really is.............a shortage of dollars.....and the movement of the peso usually confirms it.
Respectfully,
Playacaribe2
Remittance companies want to pay ‘only in Dominican RD$’
<p>Santo Domingo.- Some people who receive income from abroad complain that remittance companies want to force them to receive Dominican pesos in the country, instead of the dollars deposited by the relatives who send them money. Listín Diario reports that several people complained that they are...
dominicantoday.com
For as long as I can remember, when the government announces there is no shortage of dollars.................there really is.............a shortage of dollars.....and the movement of the peso usually confirms it.
Respectfully,
Playacaribe2
Chele. Is it just a figure of speech now? The exchange rate was RD 1.17:$1 in 1973 when I first moved to the DR. You got centavos back when you exchanged. A soda bottle full of lamp oil was 10 chele. Dame cinco meant 5 cents. A tiny box with two chicles was a chele or two. Pesos were serious. Rent on my campo house was 15 of those big boys. Farmer
FWIW: Banco Central established a new buy/sell dollar rate:
55.90 buy/55.99 sell. Cambio's will likely offer 58+ or better to buy this week.
Of course the Banco Central could raise interest rates, which would strengthen the peso..............but..........that would further impair the economy from recovering.
63:1 is still a likely target rate for December.....given the behavior of the peso this year.
Respectfully,
Playacaribe2
55.90 buy/55.99 sell. Cambio's will likely offer 58+ or better to buy this week.
Of course the Banco Central could raise interest rates, which would strengthen the peso..............but..........that would further impair the economy from recovering.
63:1 is still a likely target rate for December.....given the behavior of the peso this year.
Respectfully,
Playacaribe2
