"Trade in gold, precious metals and diamonds with Iranian public bodies and the central bank will no more be permitted, nor will the delivery of Iranian-denominated bank notes and coinage to the Iranian central bank," the statement said.
The value of their euro-denominated bank accounts, if converted into new drachma, would plunge.
As preliminary steps, Mr. Cavallo's plan calls for allowing Argentines to open euro-denominated bank accounts and carry out financial transactions in euros.
This came after confirmation that the government would switch all dollar-denominated bank deposits into pesos, a crucial step in preventing a collapse.
Bankers, happy to take a 1 or 2percentt commission on huge sums, issued dollar-denominated bank drafts, good as gold in any country.
Many of the wealthiest citizens of Russia have euro-denominated bank accounts in Cyprus, which is one reason that euro zone finance ministers have taken such a hard line.
But Facebook can't force people to accept salaries in Facebook Credits, and Sony can't stop sensible PlayStation fans from storing the vast majority of their wealth in dollar-denominated bank accounts.
Dashing the government's hopes for a quick and orderly resolution to the country's crippling financial crisis, the Argentine Supreme Court today declared unconstitutional a year-old presidential decree that has forcibly converted billions in dollar-denominated bank deposits into pesos.
Many economists predict that the future president, to keep the government afloat, will be forced to seize dollar-denominated bank accounts and to give less valuable pesos back to the depositors after a devaluation.
The linchpin of their plan involves foreign-exchange controls that would ban dollar-denominated bank accounts abroad and force exporters to sell their foreign currency to the central bank at a fixed rate.
episode illuminates a stark fact: having been coddled for a decade as the problem children of a spendthrift international military-and-development mission, Afghanistan's élites are still unwilling to take responsibility even in a case in which their own self-interest and dollar-denominated bank accounts are so clearly at stake.
