Dollar Drops To ˘518. Ouch!
The exchange rate posted by the Banco
Central (Central Bank) this Thursday morning
is ˘518.51 colones for each US dollar for
the buy and ˘528.78 for the sell, a drop of
˘12.36 and ˘12.52, respectively, from
Monday's opening.
This from a high of ˘585.90 (buy) and
˘595.37 (sell) of September 17, 2009.
According to the experts, the obligation to
pay taxes by entrepreneurs floods the local
banks with dollars so it gets cheaper.
What this means in real terms is that for
those earning in dollars, their purchase
power has dropped. Also, savings in dollars
have lost their value against the colon.
For many foreigners living off their pension
from their home country and paid in dollars,
us$1.500 translated into an income of
˘878.000 colones in September, but only
˘777.765 colones today, a difference of
˘100.000 colones, as the income needs to be
converted into colones to make purchases of
good, rent (unless paid in dollars) and
other consumable goods.
Landlords who collect rent in dollars
and businesses, like travel and tourism
companies, whose main income is in dollars
are also affected by the extreme variance in
the exchange rate.
A look at the exchange rates posted by the
different banks shows Citibank with the
lowest buy rate at ˘516 and Banco General
with the lowest sell at ˘525. All the other
banks are within the range.
At other non-bank financial institutions,
like the Casa de Cambio Global Exchange, is
buying dollars at ˘462.74 colones.
A check of exchange rates using the
XE.com universal currency
converter has the us$1 worth ˘561.471 CRC.
Obviously they need to update their page.
XE also has the Canadian dollar or "looney"
trading at ˘551.11 CRC and the one Euro
(1EUR) at ˘749.17 CRC.
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