Belarus Man Starts Black Currency Market, Online

A programmer in Belarus created a website that allows people to circumvent the official strict laws on currency trading.

Seeing empty foreign exchange booths and hearing rumors of a looming devaluation of the Belarussian ruble, thousands have signed up so far for the black market website amid a deepening currency crisis in the country.

The central bank of Belarus has for weeks been tightening foreign currency exchange rules in an attempt to prevent total depletion of the country’s reserves. Earlier in April, Belarussian banks were allowed to trade the ruble with local companies outside the 10% band previously mandated by the central bank for interbank and over-the-counter transactions. The central bank informally reversed its decision when the currency tumbled, and the crisis deepened, bringing official trading to a halt.

Three weeks ago, a young programmer who preferred to be identified simply as Petya came up with what appeared to him as “an obvious idea.” Over one weekend he built a website that already attracts about 15,000 visitors a day and has at least four copycats.

The website’s name, prokopovi.ch, mocks the name of the Belarus central bank’s head Petr Prokopovich and offers what the central bank can’t—convertibility of the Belarussian ruble.

A visitor to the website who wants to buy or sell an amount in U.S. dollars browses through the ads posted by other visitors, finds someone seeking to sell or buy the same amount, and gets in touch with that person. The parties to the transaction can then either exchange the money in an agreed place at an agreed rate, or, if they prefer official security, can go to one of the idling exchange booths.

In order to prevent the booths from stockpiling dollars and euros, the government has ordered them to immediately sell, at the official rate, whatever currency they buy from people, even though the number of people wanting to sell their dollars at the official rate is tiny. The solution: the buyer pays the seller the difference between the official and unofficial rates in cash.

Petya, who agreed to answer questions via the Internet, advertized his website on Facebook and within days it attracted thousands of visitors.

“Some people leave feedback, telling the others how much and where they have changed their currency”, he said.

The service is available not just for individuals, but also for companies.

“The whole idea was floating in the air, but now we are thinking of the ways to monetize it, without attracting too much attention to ourselves”, Petya said.

Belarussians, for 17 years living under authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko, are well-trained in overcoming the hardships of their leader’s erratic rule. When the central bank tightened exchange regulations, locals started to wire money to themselves to neighboring Russia, where they would withdraw it in the Russian rubles. This led the Belarus postal service to ban postal orders.

Local Internet auctions still offer peculiar lots, like “two $100 bills, used,” with the deal to be settled in person. But now there’s the new website.

“I wanted to give an example of how we can do things ourselves if those in power are failing”, Petya said.

On his site he promises to expand and open “trade” in other things also in short supply in the country—gasoline, public transport tokens and buckwheat. On these, Petya’s just kidding—for now.

The Wall Street Journal