On 5 November the official website of Turkmenistan’s Vnesheconombank (Foreign Trade Bank) published an announcement according to which, during an overseas stay, a maximum of $50 dollars a day can be withdrawn from a person’s own account or cash free payments of no more than $200 a day can be made.
Correspondents of “Chronicles of Turkmenistan” report that despite the restrictions, residents of Turkmenistan who are staying abroad are unable to withdraw cash in ATMs or pay with credit cards.
Over the past two weeks residents have experienced problems when with cash withdrawals.Residents are urged to literally “keep vigil” at ATMs in order to withdraw cash from their bank cards.
The residents called the Turkmen banks but the employees responded that “the problem is the poor connection with ATMs”.
In late October entrepreneurs contacted our editorial office to complain that they had arrived in Turkey to buy merchandise but failed to make purchases due to problems with cash withdrawal.
They said that on the first day they could spend $500 from the cards and withdraw 100$ in cash from ATMs.However, in the next few days we failed to do so.
Since there is no free foreign currency conversion in Turkmenistan, “the black market” emerged in Turkmenistan with the US dollar showing a steady increase in value. This leads to a constant price hike for imported merchandise and food products. In this connection, residents are trying to cash out “cheap” dollars from bank cards overseas.
Update.Our editorial board is receiving reports that residents can withdraw cash from their accounts only in the morning hours.This creates problems for students who have to skip classes in order to get cash.
Let us recall that public sector employees were barred from going to the bank to credit their accounts during work hours from 9 a.m.
to 6 p.m.At the same time, the bank cash departments taking deposits are open from 9:30 a.m.until 4 p.m.