7 News Belize

PM Banking on Benjamins
posted (May 29, 2020)
Ain't going to happen? Well, tell that to the banks. Form the looks of things, the largest commercial bank is already getting jumpy. Atlantic Bank sent a notice to customers yesterday saying that it's cutting their credit card limits, so it can keep the hard currency for, quote, "our essential service providers."

Essential services that need hard currency are purchasing power, purchasing fuel, and purchasing wheat for bread.

Today, the PM said that the banks have enough hard currency to hold them over for some months:

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"It is my understanding that we have at least another couple of months to go before the commercial banks would be close to running completely out of foreign exchange. If and when we get to such a point, then of course we have to then turn to our central bank reserves. I repeat that we have some plans as to how we can attract some additional foreign exchange from abroad. I don't want to get into the details of those plans at this juncture for fairly obvious reasons. We're not quite there yet and we don't want to give away what we are up to, but I assure you in the most sincere and transparent fashion possible that we do have a plan and so I can say that there is no way the country will completely run out of foreign exchange, no way we will get even close to that before the end of the year."

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