Money, Banks and Dominican currency

The Dominican currency is the Dominican Peso, whose symbol is RD$. In tourist areas it is also possible to pay with American dollars, or even Euros athough the exchange rate is usually less advantageous.

The exchange rate fluctuates freely acording to market supply and demand. In order to know the going rate, you can ask in a bank, or on th internet, in sites such as xe.com or oanda.com .
At the moment of exchanging money, remember that casas de cambio (bureaux de change) usually provide a good rate, with moderate commissions,even slightly better than banks some times, although it is always good to know the official exchange rate to avoid surprises.

Something we do not reccomend is to use the services of the street "exchange agents" that can be found in some corners waving a handful of dollars: they frecuently try to cheat their customers. Another, much safer option, are the ATM cash machines, which always deliver pesos, and can be found in every major city and most tourist resorts.

Financial Institutions

Among these we can mention commercial Banks, Savings & Loans associations (asociaciones de ahorros y prestamos), which work in a similar manner to banks, and loan agencies or financieras.
Main banks and Savings & Loans associations worth mentioning are:

Banco Popular
Banco León
Scotiabank
Banco de Reservas
Banco del Progreso
Banco BHD
Asociación Cibao de ahorros y prestamos
Asociación La Nacional de Ahorros y prestamos

The majority of Dominican banks allow the opening of dollar-denominated acounts, and some of them also have euro-denominated accounts. Generally speaking, interest rates are highr than those in the USA or Europe.

International money transfer are legal, although in order to take money into the country in amounts of more than US$ 10.000 it is required to justify its origin, in order to comply with anti money-laundering regulations.