BCRA Approval Required to Relocate or Shut Down Bank Branch Offices

The Argentine Central Bank (“BCRA”, after its acronym in Spanish) ordered that financial institutions obtain prior BCRA approval to shut down or relocate any of their branches. The measure is temporary and is only effective until March 31, 2021.

Since Communique “A” 4382, which was passed in 2005, the BCRA requires that financial institutions obtain prior BCRA authorization to relocate any of their branches. To shut down a branch, the only requirement used to be to give prior notice to the Superintendence of Financial and Foreign Exchange Institutions. In 2016, those requirements were repealed allowing the financial institutions to shut down or relocate branches if they were part of the “Financial Institutions Service Units” information system. Today, though just temporarily, the ability of financial institutions to shut down or relocate branches is once again limited to the BCRA’s prior approval.