$100 bills

I am presently tasked with going to the bank in Honolulu to purchase crispy new $100 bills in preparation for my wife's upcoming trip. It is the 100 day anniversary of her mother's death. (I'm not sure there is such a word for the 100th day in English as anniversary really means year.)My question is, is the obsession with new US$100 bills as a medium of exchange unique to the South. Is it a remnant of the war and subsequent diaspora or is it the preferred medium of exchange in Hanoi as well -@THIGV

My experience:

Legally, there's no difference between decree 88/2019/NĐ-CP enforcement throughout Vietnam, when doing acceptable transactions in foreign currency, such as USD to VNĐ exchange at banks.

However there's still a lot of illegal pricing in dollars in the expat friendly areas of the country.

Specifically in the Hanoi Hoàn Kiếm Old Quarter area, signs with pricing in USD are ubiquitous.

Prices in USD are frequently quoted on social media groups such as the Hanoi Massive FB group.

My general sense is that Vietnamese merchants like to quote prices in dollars because they are able to extract a hidden additional profit by exaggerating their personal exchange rate in their favor, and that's always been so wherever I've traveled in the country.

I refuse to pay anyone in dollars, not because I don't have them but because I know the price will never be fair to me.

So I always demand pricing in VNĐ.

However, if you are talking about hoarding, gold is still King.

The new government rules regarding electronic transfers are making it very difficult for people to successfully complete large cash transactions.

it's reportedly going to get even worse in the future when the government plans to specifically target the large transactions normally made in cash for real estate sales.

My gut tells me that enforcement of decree 88 is probably stricter in Hanoi, as the government policy against dollarization is seen as a patriotic issue, with the Hanoi old guard leading the way in compliance.

But you guys have a Schwab account so unless you are planning to exchange a huge amount, you will get a great exchange rate using your Visa debit card.

I just paid ₫57 million VNĐ cash for our next 6 month's rent and I was able to get the cash fairly quickly at an MB bank ATM (45 million in 9 pulls of 5 million) and the next day at an Agribank ATM near our house (12 million more in 4 pulls of 3 million each).

The MB bank ATM is a convenient stop for us when going to and from our monthly trip to the Đà Nẵng Mega Market.

I'm sure there are more Vietnamese people in the south who like to hoard dollars than there are in the north, probably because their parents and their grandparents taught them to value the greenback more than the đồng.

However there have been two major swings in the USD/VNĐ exchange rate in the last 3 years and that is almost certainly causing the black market exchange rates to shrink.