The Central Bank's dollar sale

The Finance Ministry sells oil dollars to the Central Bank for dinars, and the Central Bank sells those dollars on to banks and exchange companies at its official price. A bank can ask for dollars in three forms: as cash, handed over in banknotes; as a transfer, sent abroad for its customer; or as a letter of credit, which pays for imported goods.

Dollars are released only for a stated purpose, such as an import invoice. This is the weak point of the system. An inflated or duplicated invoice, or an invoice for goods that never arrive, is enough to obtain dollars at the official price, and those dollars can then be sold on the market for more. What that gap was worth.

Since February 2023 transfers have gone through an electronic platform, which requires the name of the final recipient, the invoice and the foreign bank that pays out. In the same year the Central Bank began sending dollars straight to banks' accounts abroad, outside the daily sale, without saying which banks received them.

Cash dollars sold to travellers at the official price are another weak point. Travellers' dollars: abuse of the official-rate cash allowance for travellers and CBI counter-measures (2023 to 2024).