VENEZUELA WITHDRAWS LARGEST BANKNOTE

Not long ago, Yajaira Perez was queuing to withdraw cash from the bank, fearing bills would run short. Now she is queuing anxiously to put it back in.

Venezuela’s food, medicine and currency crisis is now a cash crisis, too, with the government about to put millions of bank notes out of circulation.

As usual, ordinary Venezuelans are suffering — waiting in line for hours to deposit the doomed bills, when they could be working, or caring for their families.

“It’s horrible, horrible. They can’t do this a few days before Christmas,” said Ms Perez, a middle-aged housewife while queuing in the early morning at a bank in eastern Caracas.

Spooked by a shortage of banknotes, she had been withdrawing 100 bolivar bills to make sure she had ready cash.

Then on Monday (AEDT), President Nicolas Maduro ­ordered the most common bank note, the 100-bolivar unit, to be scrapped by Friday. “Little by little you put money aside in case of an emergency,” Ms Perez said. “Now I have to come back and I’m ending up with no cash at all.”

Teresa Giraldo, 48, has been getting paid mainly in 100-bolivar bills for her job as a cleaner.

“I went to buy bread and when I got to the front of the queue they wouldn’t accept them,” she said.

“Now I have to go through this to put them in the bank. Then I will have to come back in a few days and queue for more hours to withdraw the money again. This is crazy.”

The 100-bolivar bill is the highest-denomination bank note in Venezuela, but is worth about a US1c. In a country with one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world, shoppers must carry round unwieldy wads of bills to pay for their purchases.

To read the complete article, see:
Venezuelans queue to deposit cash after largest banknote is axed (www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/venezuelans-queue-to-deposit-cash-after-largest-banknote-is-axed/news-story/4f6c3fbf05497445695930ec26fe4183)

Authorities on Thursday are due to start releasing six new notes and three new coins, the largest of which will be worth 20,000 bolivars, less than $5 on the streets.

Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader elected after Chavez's death in 2013, said Colombian shoppers and organized criminals were buying up the 100-bolivar bills to go on a spending spree in Venezuela, worsening shortages of basics such as flour and antibiotics.

Venezuela is heaving under its third straight year of recession, pushing millions to skip meals and medical treatment. Many others are increasingly traveling to Colombia to find supplies. But shops across the border on Monday were displaying signs that they would not accept 100-bolivar bills, bringing business to a halt and sending Venezuelans home empty-handed.

Later on Monday night, Maduro announced in a televised broadcast that he would close the porous border for 72 hours to stem what he said was contraband of notes. His government also says businessmen are hoarding goods and bloating prices to sabotage socialism.

In Venezuela, there also were logistical concerns about how authorities would remove the more than six billion 100-bolivar bills in circulation, nearly half of all coins and notes, and whether replacement bills were ready.

To read the complete article, see:
Chaos in Venezuela: bills and coins pulled out of circulation to combat hyperinflation (http://en.mercopress.com/2016/12/13/chaos-in-venezuela-bills-and-coins-pulled-out-of-circulation-to-combat-hyperinflation)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web