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The money of the country you live in can lose a big part of its value within weeks — and everything you keep in it loses value too. If your salary or savings are in the local currency, this scenario hits you most directly.
Time to act once this fires: 2-3 weeks
Keep only 1-2 months of expenses in the local currency. Hold the rest in hard currency (euro, US dollar, Swiss franc). Prefer international banks or EU/US-licensed brokers over purely local ones. Open a foreign account or set up a transfer route now, while it is easy. Check the exchange rate weekly and act early — limits appear overnight.
Hold your savings in hard currency
Hard currency is a stable, widely trusted currency such as the euro, US dollar, or Swiss franc. Receiving your salary in the local currency and spending from it is fine — but convert what you save soon after payday. Keep no more than one or two months of expenses in local money.
Check where your bank is headquartered
A bank registered in the crisis country must obey local freezes, withdrawal limits, and forced conversion of foreign-currency accounts. An international bank or an EU/US-licensed broker is one step removed from those orders. Look up your bank's country of registration — it's on the bank's website, usually in the footer or the legal section — and open a backup account with a foreign institution while it is still easy.
Watch the exchange rate weekly
Big devaluations rarely come out of nowhere: first the currency slides a little every week while the central bank spends its reserves (the stock of foreign currency it uses to defend the rate). Check the rate once a week. A steady slide over a month or two is your signal to move the rest of your savings — not to wait and see.
Move money before limits appear, not after
Capital controls are government limits on exchanging currency or sending money abroad — and they are usually announced overnight, with no warning. Decide now what you would transfer and where, test the route with a small amount this week, and don't keep money you plan to move "waiting for a better rate".
The macro conditions that define this scenario. Each marker's share is how much it adds to a country's score when its alarm line is crossed.
| Indicator | Alarm line | Share of the score |
|---|---|---|
| Inflation, CPI (annual) | above 20% | 29% |
| Total reserves (months of imports) | below 3 months | 29% |
| Current account balance to GDP | below -5% | 14% |
| Exchange rate, local currency per US dollar (daily) | a rise of more than 15% above its recent low, for 5 periods in a row | 29% |