Visitors to Argentina who use debit and credit cards issued by Chinese company UnionPay will get almost twice as many pesos as before after the company moved from the official exchange rate to the foreign tourist dollar exchange rate. Payments made in Argentina with UnionPay cards will now use the MEP dollar (the Spanish acronym for Electronic Payment Market) exchange rate —currently AR$479.35 to the dollar— instead of the official exchange rate of AR$259 per dollar at the time of writing. The foreign tourist dollar was launched on November 4 as a way to make the country cheaper for tourists and dissuade them from going to illegal exchange houses that offer the blue dollar exchange rate. UnionPay now gives cardholders the same rate as Visa, Mastercard, Cabal, and electronic wallets such as Pix. The foreign tourist exchange rate allows the dollars tourists use to make payments to be exchanged into pesos through the financial market, instead of in the official foreign exchange market.

Source: Bueno Aires Herald June 17, 2023 11:29 UTC