Money, in brief

Money does three separate jobs. It buys things now, it holds its worth between payday and spending day, and it is the unit prices are written in. [1][3]

Nothing forces one object to do all three. A currency can keep one job and lose the others, and Argentina is what that looks like. [1][2]

Argentine households hold more than $250bn in US dollars at home, in offshore accounts and in safe deposit boxes. That is about six times the reserves of Argentina's own central bank, the Wall Street Journal reported. [4]

Prices in Argentina rose more than 25% in a single month soon after Javier Milei became president in December 2023. [7]

Annual inflation then fell from 211% in 2023 to 31.5% at the end of 2025. A political economist who studies Argentina argues the fall came from crushed wages, not a healthier economy: more than 2,000 businesses closed and 73,000 jobs went. [5]

The peso has still fallen roughly 30% this year. Argentina's central bank set trading limits in April to hold it inside a band, and has spent billions of dollars defending them. [6]

The saving job is the one a person can leave on their own. Argentine savers switched household by household, with no law changed, and the dollars sit in homes, offshore accounts and boxes. [4]

The paying job cannot be left alone. Something only works as a means of payment if every party to the deal accepts it, so no single household can switch what it pays with. [2]

That is why swapping a currency outright is done by governments. Full dollarisation replaces the national money as legal tender and hands away control of interest rates and the profit a state makes from issuing notes. [8][9]

In the Americas, where more than three dozen currencies are in official use, only Ecuador, El Salvador and Panama have done it. [13]

Seventeen countries and territories now use the US dollar as their currency, Zimbabwe among them. [11]

Which prices break first is measurable. Turkiye's annual inflation hit 85% in late 2022, up from under 20% a year before. Goods prices there moved with the exchange rate; services prices moved by about a tenth of each currency move. [14]

More than half of all US paper dollars in circulation are held outside the United States, according to the US Treasury. [12]

The list of currencies people move into is short. The most tradable are the US dollar, the euro, the yen, the pound, the Swiss franc, and the Canadian and Australian dollars. [10]

Why it matters. Watch whether Argentina's central bank keeps the peso inside its trading band. Economists quoted by the BBC say holding it is not sustainable, and point to Argentines crossing into neighbouring countries to shop as the sign. [6]

A group of US banks dropped plans for a $20bn debt facility for Argentina, part of a package that also included a $20bn arrangement with the US Treasury to lend dollars. [47]

Why it matters. The public half of the rescue survived; the private half did not.

US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said steadying Argentina served US interests. Critics quoted by the New York Times say some investors holding Argentine assets may have gained from it too. [48]

Why it matters. A currency defence pays whoever already owns what it defends.

Nearly two years into Milei's overhaul the economy is contracting, tens of thousands of jobs have not come back, and pensioners and teachers say they cannot make ends meet, the Wall Street Journal reported. [21]

Why it matters. Slower inflation and a better life are not the same measurement.

The US dollar lost more than 9% of its value in 2025. The US current account gap runs near 6% of its economy and US government debt is at a record. [45][19]

Why it matters. The currency people flee to has a price too.

Gold rose from 10% of central bank reserves in January 2019 to more than 22% by August 2025, an IMF note found. Almost all of that came from the price, not from buying: the market value went from $1.2 trillion to $4.5 trillion while the amount of metal rose about 8%. [20]

Why it matters. A share that moves because the price moved is not a decision anyone made.

Stablecoins, digital tokens that promise to be worth one dollar each, doubled in size since 2024 to about $300bn by September 2025. Dollar-pegged ones are 97% of what is issued. [16]

Why it matters. A private money that borrows the dollar's steadiness rather than earning its own.

About 80% of stablecoin transactions are bots rebalancing between markets, the IMF found. One of the two biggest traded 12% below a dollar in March 2023 after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, where it held deposits. [16]

Why it matters. The promise to be worth a dollar held 99% of the time, which is not all of it.

Miran, a governor of the US Federal Reserve, said private forecasts put stablecoins at $1 trillion to $3 trillion by the end of the decade. Circle keeps about 13% of its reserves in bank deposits; Tether keeps almost none. [43][44]

Why it matters. What backs the promise differs sharply between the two largest issuers.

Migrant workers sent an estimated $856bn in 2024, $653bn of it to low- and middle-income countries. The cost of sending has fallen from more than 9% in 2009 to about 6%, the World Bank says. [40]

Why it matters. For many families this is the most reliable income there is.

Digital remittances average about 4% of the amount sent against about 7% for cash-based services. [40] Banks are the priciest route of all, averaging close to 14.55% on a small transfer under World Bank pricing data. [41]

Why it matters. The people least able to go digital pay the most to send.

From 1 January 2026 a 1% US tax applies to money sent abroad using cash, a money order or a cashier's cheque, and not to other methods. The IRS waived deposit penalties for providers for the first three quarters. [42]

Why it matters. The tax is written against a form of money, not an amount.

Santander will shut 44 branches and put 291 jobs at risk, saying 96% of its transactions are now digital. Last year it closed 95 branches, a quarter of its network, affecting 750 workers. [28]

Why it matters. Each closure is defended by the customers who already left.

The consumer group Which? counts 6,795 UK bank branch closures since January 2015, 69% of the branches open at the start of that year. Lloyds Banking Group intends to shut almost 150 more outlets by March 2027. [29]

Why it matters. Cash and paper payments need a physical place to exist.

Lloyds is closing its Crowborough branch, following Barclays and Santander, leaving the nearest bank about eight miles away in Tunbridge Wells. Just under 700 people used it regularly and more than half were over 55. [30]

Why it matters. Where the branch map thins out first is where the oldest customers are.

Cash Access UK has opened 213 shared banking hubs, which average more than 150 transactions a day. [30] A new one opens in Stamford Arts Centre, run by the Post Office, weekdays 9am to 5pm. [31] NatWest, which is closing 32 branches including Godalming, has a hub planned there. [54]

Why it matters. A shared counter replaces the branches of several banks at once.

A new fund will target towns left without a branch after closures. In Bentham, a councillor said losing the bank removed a place people used for guidance on accounts, savings and mortgages. [55]

Why it matters. A branch was doing more than dispensing notes.

Nationwide, Britain's biggest building society, has pledged to keep its remaining branches open until at least 2030. [46] It had already closed about 10% of them before making that promise in 2023. [28]

Why it matters. A promise made after the cutting is a promise about what is left.

Home insurance averages $9,770 a year in Oklahoma City and $1,475 in San Jose. A third of US homeowners, 34%, say their premium rose in the past twelve months. [53]

Why it matters. The same roof, priced by the weather above it.

Long-run inflation expectations across Latin America barely moved through the price surge that followed the pandemic, an IMF study found. Credibility is asymmetric: soft policy surprises erode it faster than tough ones rebuild it. [15]

Why it matters. What people expect prices to do is itself part of what prices do.

The US had 74,721 insured commercial bank branches in 2019 and 68,330 at the end of 2024. Only 9% of US consumers now name a branch as their preferred way to bank, against 76% for mobile or online. [32]

Why it matters. The same trend, on a different continent, with the same argument behind it.

Bank branches in the US fell 19% between 2014 and 2024, yet the average distance to the nearest one rose only modestly, a Federal Reserve study using census-block data found. Gaps by race and income existed but did not widen much. [33]

Why it matters. An average distance can hide the household for whom the last mile was the only one.

13.1% of US credit card balances are 90 or more days overdue, the highest since early 2011, Bankrate reports. The Wall Street Journal, using New York Federal Reserve data, put the first-quarter figure above 13%, near the peak that followed the 2008 crash. [34][35]

Why it matters. The last time it was here, a financial crisis was the reason.

US card balances total $1.25 trillion. One borrower profiled by the Wall Street Journal earns $194,000 and pays a $572 monthly minimum on a $15,000 balance at 26% interest. [36]

Why it matters. A payment you can afford and a debt that shrinks are different things.

61% of US cardholders with card debt have carried it for at least a year, up from 53% in late 2024, and 22% do not think they will ever clear it. The average balance is $6,523. [37]

Why it matters. Debt that stops being an event becomes a fixed household cost.

41% of US card debtors say the debt began with an emergency such as a medical bill or a car repair, and 33% name day-to-day costs like groceries and utilities, up from 26% in 2023. [37]

Why it matters. The category that is growing is the one nobody chooses.

The share of US consumer loans 30 to 59 days late reached 1.13%, up from 1.02% the month before and near the 1.15% recorded in January 2020, VantageScore data shows. [38]

Why it matters. Early misses arrive before the arrears figures move.

54% of Black applicants for credit in the US were denied in 2025, more than twice the rate for white applicants, the Federal Reserve's household survey found. 7% of US adults used a payday, pawn or car-title loan. [39]

Why it matters. Being outside ordinary credit is what makes expensive credit a market.

A US household carrying the average revolving card balance and paying only the minimum would run up about $18,500 in interest, NerdWallet calculates. Half of Americans say carrying such debt is normal. [52]

Why it matters. The cheapest monthly payment is the most expensive total.

US home prices rose about 55% since 2018, while New Orleans prices rose 14%, less than inflation, as insurance costs climbed. In one Louisiana town a premium quadrupled in 2022 to $500 a month, against a $700 mortgage. [22]

Why it matters. The cost of insuring a house is now part of what the house is worth.

In much of the US the same home costs $1,272 a year to insure for an owner with strong credit and $2,898 for one with weak credit, New York Times analysis found. Some states ban pricing on credit history. [23]

Why it matters. A record built to predict repayment is being used to price a storm.

US households in the 20% of postal areas with the highest expected weather losses pay 82% more for home insurance than those in the lowest 20%. About 45% of the rise in the worst areas is reinsurance costs passed down. [24]

Why it matters. Reinsurance is insurance for insurers, and it reprices faster than households can move.

Insurance on US apartment buildings rose from $39 a unit each month in 2019 to $68 in 2024 after inflation, a rise of more than 75%, a Federal Reserve study found. It remains about 5% of a building's revenue. [25]

Why it matters. Renters pay a premium on a policy in someone else's name.

About 14% of US owner-occupied homes are uninsured, and in the five costliest states, Nebraska, Louisiana, Florida, Oklahoma and Kansas, cover averages upwards of $4,400 a year, more than $2,000 above the national average. [26] Insurers are also pulling out of areas with extreme weather, including parts of southwest Florida hit by Hurricane Ian in 2022. [27]

Why it matters. Going without is the option left when the premium outruns the budget.

US disaster costs fell in 2025, yet it was the fourth year in five with more than $100bn of weather losses. Industry forecasts still show home insurance premiums rising 3% to 8%. [26]

Why it matters. Insurers price the next decade, not the last year.

Under the SECURE 2.0 law, US 401(k) and 403(b) workplace pension plans must automatically enrol eligible staff, who can then opt out. Savers may also take one emergency withdrawal of up to $1,000 a year without the usual extra 10% tax. [51]

Why it matters. The default was switched from out to in, which is the whole intervention.

US consumer prices were 4.2% higher over twelve months in May, up from 3.8% in April, driven by energy costs after the war with Iran. The peak in this cycle was 9.1% in mid-2022. [49]

Why it matters. A rate this size still leaves the dollar doing all three jobs; Argentina's did not.

Myanmar's kyat appreciated steadily through 2025 after a sharp fall the year before, the World Bank reports. Inflation has eased, though prices remain high enough to strain household budgets. [17]

Why it matters. Currencies recover their store-of-value job slowly, and the price level does not come back.

Fiji's headline inflation has been moderate, but the pressure sits in food and transport, which take a large share of household spending, an IMF review found. Migration and remittances act as the shock absorber. [18]

Why it matters. An average price index is not what a household actually buys.

The financial impact of cyber incidents more than quadrupled between 2017 and the end of 2023, reaching $2.5bn, the IMF reports in a study of payment systems in conflict-hit states. [50]

Why it matters. Digital money needs a working network the way cash needs a shop that will take it.