Report on the Evolution of the Foreign Exchange Market and the Foreign Exchange Balance

We present a new edition of this monthly publication, corresponding to August 2025, which analyzes the evolution of purchases and sales of foreign currency made by entities with clients through the foreign exchange market.

Executive summary

In August, the entities’ customers bought USD 271 million in the foreign exchange market, while the National Treasury and the entities sold USD 207 million and USD 8 million, respectively. For its part, the BCRA did not operate in the spot exchange market and made net payments through the Local Currency Payment System (SML) for USD 55 million.

The “Non-Financial Private Sector” was a net buyer of foreign currency for USD 787 million in the foreign exchange market. Within this group, “Individuals” registered net outflows of USD 3,450 million, mainly due to net purchases of banknotes and foreign currency without specific purposes for USD 3,537 million.

It should be noted that part of the funds acquired and registered in the banknote account are deposited in local accounts or can be used later for the cancellation of consumption with cards in foreign currency and do not necessarily constitute the formation of foreign assets as the final destination of these funds. Similarly, as for foreign currency outflows, they can be partly used to cancel foreign liabilities (for example, for payments of foreign commercial and financial debt or profits and dividends). On the other hand, the “Oilseeds and Cereals” sector was the main sector offering foreign currency, registering net revenues of USD 1,804 million, largely explained by its result under the heading “Goods”. In turn, the “Real Sector excluding Oilseeds and Cereals” recorded net sales of USD 551 million, mainly explained by net income from “Debt, FDI, portfolio and other operations”.

In terms of the foreign exchange balance, the operations of the current account of the foreign exchange balance registered a deficit of USD 1,133 million in August, explained by the net outflows of the “Primary income” and “Services” accounts of USD 1,164 million and USD 840 million, respectively, partially offset by the net income in the “Goods” and “Secondary income” accounts of USD 845 million and USD 26 million. respectively.

In turn, the foreign exchange financial account was in surplus of USD 1,702 million in August. This result was explained by the surpluses of the “National Government and BCRA” and the “Financial Sector” of USD 2,058 million and USD 1,322 million, respectively, partially offset by the net expenditures of the “Non-Financial Private Sector” and “Other Net Movements” of USD 1,136 million and USD 542 million, respectively.

The BCRA’s international reserves increased by USD 1,120 million in August, ending the month at a level of USD 39,986 million. This result was mainly explained by the IMF’s gross disbursements of the equivalent of USD 2,073 million and by the increase in the price in US dollars of the assets that make up the reserves by USD 477 million. The aforementioned movements were partially offset by interest payments and charges to the IMF for USD 839 million, for net sales of foreign currency in the foreign exchange market by the National Treasury for USD 207 million, and net payments made by the BCRA through the Local Currency Payment System (SML) for USD 59 million.