Source: Financial Times [UK]
“‘WeAreAStableCountry,’ Bolivia’s central bank has said on Twitter repeatedly this month. The long queues of people outside its offices clamouring to buy dollars suggest otherwise. The impoverished South American nation’s foreign exchange reserves have been shrinking for years, threatening the boliviano’s peg to the US dollar. … In a sign of the deepening crisis, Fitch on Tuesday downgraded Bolivia’s debt deeper into junk territory, assigning it a B minus rating with a negative outlook. … queues of people trying to buy dollars continued to form outside the central bank’s headquarters in La Paz this week. People also waited outside branches of Banco Union, a state-controlled bank permitted by the central bank to sell dollars, in the cities of Santa Cruz and Cochabamba. The crisis of confidence spread on Tuesday to Banco Fassil, a privately owned bank with $4.2bn in assets.” (03/15/23)
https://www.ft.com/content/b77939bb-6fdd-44ae-845d-b807136c902e