page_title: Economy of Argentina
section_title: Banking
hierarchical_section_title: Economy of Argentina / Sectors / Services / Banking
caption_attribution_description: Costanera Sur Natural Reserve (RECS) in Buenos Aires.
context_page_description: Argentina is a developing country. It is the second-largest in South America behind Brazil.
  Argentina benefits from rich natural resources, a highly literate population, an export-oriented agricultural sector, and a diversified industrial base. Argentina's economic performance has historically been very uneven, with high economic growth alternating with severe recessions, particularly since the late twentieth century, since when income maldistribution and poverty have increased. Early in the twentieth century Argentina had one of the ten highest per capita GDP levels in the world, on par with Canada and Australia and surpassing both France and Italy.
  Argentina's currency declined by about 50% in 2018 to more than 38 Argentine pesos per U.S. Dollar and as of in that year is under a stand-by program from the International Monetary Fund. In 2019, it fell further by 25%.
  Argentina is considered an emerging market by the FTSE Global Equity Index, and is one of the G-20 major economies.
context_section_description: Argentine banking, whose deposits exceeded US$120 billion in December 2012, developed around public sector banks, but is now dominated by the private sector. The private sector banks account for most of the 80 active institutions (over 4,000 branches) and holds nearly 60% of deposits and loans, and as many foreign-owned banks as local ones operate in the country. The largest bank in Argentina by far, however, has long been the public Banco de la Nación Argentina. Not to be confused with the Central Bank, this institution now accounts for 30% of total deposits and a fifth of its loan portfolio.
  During the 1990s, Argentina's financial system was consolidated and strengthened. Deposits grew from less than US$15 billion in 1991 to over US$80 billion in 2000, while outstanding credit (70% of it to the private sector) tripled to nearly US$100 billion.
  The banks largely lent US dollars and took deposits in Argentine pesos, and when the peso lost most of its value in early 2002, many borrowers again found themselves hard pressed to keep up. Delinquencies tripled to about 37%. Over a fifth of deposits had been withdrawn by December 2001, when Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo imposed a near freeze on cash withdrawals. The lifting of the restriction a year later was bittersweet, being greeted calmly, if with some umbrage, at not having these funds freed at their full U.S. dollar value. Some fared worse, as owners of the now-defunct Velox Bank defrauded their clients of up to US$800 million.
  Credit in Argentina is still relatively tight. Lending has been increasing 40% a year since 2004, and delinquencies are down to less than 2%. Still, credit outstanding to the private sector is, in real terms, slightly below its 1998 peak, and as a percent of GDP (around 18%) quite low by international standards. The prime rate, which had hovered around 10% in the 1990s, hit 67% in 2002. Although it returned to normal levels quickly, inflation, and more recently, global instability, have been affecting it again. The prime rate was over 20% for much of 2009, and around 17% since the first half of 2010.
  Partly a function of this and past instability, Argentines have historically held more deposits overseas than domestically. The estimated US$173 billion in overseas accounts and investment exceeded the domestic monetary base (M3) by nearly US$10 billion in 2012.
caption: View of Buenos Aires Central Business District from the Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve.
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