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Iraq faced its first bank run of the cleanup…Depositors crowded the doors of Al-Taif Islamic Bank in Baghdad demanding their money back. One woman told reporters she has 220 million […]

Today the [currency] operation met its first stress test…A currency change over has one weak point.  Forget the printing, paperwork and parliament.  The weak point is the morning every citizen […]

When the rate is live, go to the private-client side of a large institution, not a retail branch. Chase Private Client opens near $150,000 in combined balances. UBS from roughly […]

Smaller Notes Only Mean One Thing. A note smaller than 250 dinars is worthless at today’s rate. A state prints one only when it knows the rate is about to change…Baghdad […]

The CBI sets and announces the rate… any morning it chooses. It does not need the budget, the cabinet, or a vote.  That is literally the law: Central Bank Law No. […]

The exchange rate in Baghdad is not only a market number. It is written into law through the budget. The 1,300 every holder knows by heart has sat there since […]

In 1990 two neighboring currencies both bought more than $3.00 each…One Iraqi dinar bought $3.22 sitting right beside its Kuwaiti neighbor at $3.47.  Two dinars, two neighbors, both above $3.00.  Then […]

This week the world’s 20 largest economies agreed on the record that a currency priced below its fundamentals is not a fact of nature.  It is a fault produced by […]

There is a precedent for how this ends and it is right next door.  When Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in 1990 they looted the currency and the world wrote the […]

Iraq’s currency in circulation runs to roughly 113 trillion dinar, most of it outside the banks. People…look at the size of the imagined payout, and conclude the math cannot work. […]

The biggest mistake is comparing banks on the headline rate alone.  The rate is one number.  The package is the rate plus fees, on-boarding, plus what the institution does for […]

Forget the naysayers. Here’s one line to hold whenever the fear comes back.  Iraq is not rebuilding its books, its banks, its borders and its budget to make the dinar […]

A country [Iraq] that just ordered 7.5 billion new notes has stopped dispensing the old ones…Here’s how an exchange actually works…   An exchange works by making the old paper unusable […]

That swap at home [in Iraq] is one door, and it was built for one crowd: the trillions of dinar sitting in Iraqi mattresses, market stalls and shop tills…It cleans […]

The redenomination of the Iraqi dinar (IQD) is the most common fear in the dinar community, and the fear…runs like this. Iraq deletes the zeros and forces every note through […]

Be prepared.  On Monday Iraq ordered 7.5 billion new banknotes. Today the news from the ground is that you cannot buy the old ones. Two separate channels, with no line to […]

You’ll never be told a date.  Kuwait did not announce its 1991 exchange in advance and Iraq did not announce its own in 2003…The public gets denials right up until the […]

The Central Bank of Iraq published two documents on Wednesday. One went to the public: a formal statement… denying that any new currency has been printed. Its companion went to every […]

Hiring a fiduciary adviser is the moment a windfall either stays yours or starts leaking…You are the client. A lawyer, a trustee, a banker, and a trust provider all work […]

Iraq’s central bank now holds more than 170 tons of gold worth over $25 billion up 5.7% this year alone.  Central banks do not stack gold behind a currency going […]

Question: “Does the redenomination and the evaluation happen at the same time?” An exchange opens with a window and a deadline.  Bring the old notes to a bank and you get […]

Baghdad spent Monday evening arguing with itself in public…First the government’s spokesman, Haider al-Aboudi, told reporters no decision had been made to remove the zeros from the dinar. Then Rebwar Karim, […]

A peg is a decision a country makes once and then defends for good…Iraq put that chart on television 37 days before the deadline that settles who holds the country’s […]

Over one weekend, Iraq moved the currency question out of the committee rooms and onto the evening news. The central bank governor told parliament the current monetary stance is a […]

Weapons first, cabinet second, budget after that.  The rate arrives last…Any morning it chooses, the CBI can open a window, name a note and print a number…Every question about the […]

Iraq’s militias lose their paymasters… The armed factions still refusing to hand their weapons to the Iraqi state…Iraqi forces seized 49 drones and shut 71 fake faction offices, the loudest holdout […]

Someone in your life has told you nothing is happening. Maybe it was a family member.  Perhaps a forum. Or the voice in your own head at 2am, staring at […]