CARACAS, Venezuela — Carrying trash bags and backpacks filled with cash, Venezuelans fretfully lined up on Friday outside banks across the country to exchange currency that President Nicolás Maduro said would soon be void.
Mr. Maduro’s decision that all 100-bolívar notes must be exchanged has caused panic, partly because the deadline keeps shifting and many banks and businesses are already refusing to accept them. For many people without bank accounts, the bills, which have long been the country’s highest-denomination note, are their primary means of saving money.
“Like all Venezuelans, I’m trying to get this problem resolved,” said Maritza Sosa, 65, a retiree who had waited for hours at a bank here to exchange 2,000 bolívars in 100-bolívar bills.
The problem has long been that the notes are nearly worthless.
A ruinous economic crisis punctuated by inflation and a collapse in Venezuela’s currency had left 100-bolívar notes trading on the country’s black market at about 4 cents, up from about 2 cents only a week ago. Early this month, the government announced that it would introduce six new bills to replace the old ones, ranging from 500 to 20,000 bolívars.That news came as a relief to many Venezuelans who had become accustomed to carrying around small bags even for the most basic transactions. Lunch in Caracas, for example, could cost 10,000 bolívars, requiring carrying 100 bills that might be counted in machines at the register.
But on Sunday Mr. Maduro made a second announcement: The 100-bolívar notes would be taken out of circulation almost immediately as a move to combat organized crime groups that he said were hoarding them. The president also announced that he would temporarily close the border with Colombia, where he said the bills were being traded on the black market for dollars.
On Friday, Venezuelan news media said the lines had resulted in chaotic scenes in several cities in the country, including El Callao and Puerto La Cruz, where there had been protests and outbreaks of looting.
There were also confused scenes at banks like the Banesco branch in the El Hatillo neighborhood here. On Thursday, it had been flooded by hundreds of people demanding to make deposits. On Friday, the bank, which was out of money to make exchanges, was nearly empty. Mario Rafael Piña, a teller, said the bank had no idea when it would receive the higher-denomination bills.
Maria Eugenia Cepeda, 52, a real estate agent, feared she would soon run out of money for food if she could not get new currency. A.T.M.s throughout the neighborhood were dispensing only 100 bolívar notes, she said, and the tellers had told her they did not have any money available to cash a smaller check for her.
The uncertainty, in some ways, had echoes of the recent cash crisis in India touched off after the government said it would scrap two of its most widely circulated bills to crack down on undeclared hoards of cash. Indians, however, have until year’s end to exchange their bills.
Elías Matta, an opposition congressman who has sat on finance committees, criticized the government’s moves for coming at the holiday season, when Venezuelans are making Christmas purchases. He estimates that about 30 percent of Venezuelans rely on cash because they have no bank accounts. “No one is prepared, not the banks, not the government, not the people,” he said. “Now we are paying the consequences for this nonsense.”
On Friday, Jorge Alvez, 24, a motorcycle taxi driver, waited outside a bank with 6,100 bolívars in 100-bolívar notes, his earnings from clients over recent days when he says he accepted the bills “because I am considerate.”
He had spent recent days shopping at stores that would accept them, trying to change what he could into food.
What would he do with the rest?
“Maybe throw them in the trash,” he said, laughing. “Or save them as a souvenir.”
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