BONEX Plan

The BONEX Plan was a forced conversion of bank time deposits to Treasury bonds performed by the Argentine government in January 1990.[1]

It was put in place following a 3079,5% hyperinflation in 1989,[2] as heterodox stabilization programs failed.[3] US$3 billion worth of the public's deposits were converted to "Bonex 89" bonds to be repaid in 1999.[4] It amounted to a partial default from the Central Bank and Treasury to commercial banks, who in turn partially defaulted into their depositors.[1]

It was caused by the government's political inability to undertake rigorous fiscal reforms, and a monetary sterilization policy which generated a major 'quasi fiscal' deficit to the Central Bank, further fueling a long-standing high inflation rate.[5][1] Its high debt made the Central Bank lost most of its capacity to carry out independent monetary policy.

A freezing of deposits was also undertaken in neighbor country Brazil at the time, during the Plano Collor.[6]

  1. ^ a b c Beckerman, Paul (1995). "Central-Bank 'Distress' and Hyperinflation in Argentina, 1989-90". Journal of Latin American Studies. 27 (3): 663–682. doi:10.1017/S0022216X00011640. ISSN 0022-216X. JSTOR 158487. S2CID 146796580.
  2. ^ "La inflación, según el paso de las décadas" [Inflation, as decades pass by]. Torcuato di Tella University (in Spanish). 12 October 2012. Retrieved 2020-09-21.
  3. ^ Edwards, Sebastian (1995). Crisis and reform in Latin America : from despair to hope (PDF). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-521105-7. OCLC 32133144 – via World Bank.
  4. ^ do Rosario, Jorgelina (11 December 2009). "A 20 años del Plan Bonex" [20 years since the Bonex Plan]. El Cronista (in European Spanish). Retrieved 2020-09-21.
  5. ^ Basu, Ritu; Druck, Pablo; Marston, David (2004-08-01). "Bank Consolidation and Performance: The Argentine Experience". IMF Working Paper 04/149. Rochester, NY: International Monetary Fund. SSRN 878974.
  6. ^ Ayala Salcedo, Roberto; Ruiz Guaricela, Maria Del Pilar (2009-02-18). "El efecto del congelamiento de depósitos sobre el sector real y monetarío de la economía ecuatoriana en el período de marzo de 1999 a marzo de 2000" [Effects of the deposits froze on the real and monetary sectors of Ecuadorian economy during the March 1999 - March 2000 period] (in Spanish). Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)