The Professional Association of Banks (APB), alerted by unthinking and deceptive words conveyed on social networks and some Haitian radio stations, which for unacknowledged purposes, fuel rumors in a volatile social climate, making believe that banks are responsible for the tumble of the Gourde by their supposed capacity, to manipulate the exchange rate. These false claims may jeopardize the integrity of the Haitian banking system and the APB is therefore keen to make a point of clarification.

The APB recalls that the banking sector is strictly regulated by the Central Bank which imposes a daily report and a strict transparency of its professional activities forcing it to comply with the rules, under penalty of penalties and significant penalties.

"Among these rules, banks must comply with Circular 81-5, which defines the conditions under which banks may carry out their foreign exchange transactions. This Circular imposes daily on Banks a maximum ratio of 0.5% of their foreign exchange position in relation to their own funds. Any excess of this position is automatically redeemed by the Central Bank the following day at the reference rate established by the latter. This ensures that every day no bank can keep a foreign exchange position that could be used for speculative purposes. For example, a bank with 100 million Gourdes own funds can not having, at the end of the day, a foreign exchange position whose equivalent in foreign currency would exceed 500 thousand gourdes.

"Banks are intermediaries in the foreign exchange market as well as a multitude of other stakeholders (stockbrokers, individuals, trading houses...). Of the US $ 342 million that is theoretically expected to be traded monthly on the foreign exchange market ($ 242 million transfer and 100 million export businesses), only about 200 million pass through the Haitian banking system. It is therefore misleading to think that banks monopolize the foreign exchange market.

"On the other hand, the APB wishes to emphasize that the acceleration of the depreciation of the local currency is the result of the deterioration of the macroeconomic environment fueled mainly by an imbalance in public finances, as the Minister of Economy and Finance admitted. Indeed, it has been observed that the monetary financing of the public deficit reached more than 25 billion Gourdes as of 30 September 2018. Moreover, this unprecedented deficit, of which the financing by the Central Bank is at 0% of interest rate, continued to grow during the new fiscal year and in less than 4 months has reached almost 10 billion additional gourdes, bringing the cumulative deficit to date to nearly 35 billion gourdes. This has a direct impact on the acceleration of the depreciation of the national currency observed during these last six months (40% on an annual basis) and also nourishes the strong negative expectations of the economic agents concerning the future value. of the gourd versus the US dollar.

"Therefore, to stop the depreciation of the national currency, the government should exercise fiscal discipline, and take drastic measures to curb the pace of the fiscal deficit and avoid using the Central Bank to directly finance the State, by activating the billboard. Several countries around the world who have overreacted to this financing mechanism soon found themselves facing a sharp depreciation of their currencies and disastrous consequences for their economies.

HL/ HaitiLibre