For those with larger dollar accounts, the process will start as late as September 2003 and take two years.

The peg virtually ended capital flight, and bank accounts have grown to $78 billion, 57 percent of which are now in dollar accounts.

Banks will end dollar transactions and convert dollar accounts to pesos.

So it drew down its huge dollar accounts to keep the peso - and with it Mexico's self-image - strong.

Peruvians can hold dollar accounts in local banks and send money abroad whenever they want to, unlike in some other Latin American nations.

Until 1982, both Mexicans and foreign residents were permitted to maintain dollar accounts in banks here.

After what happened in 1982, would you open a dollar account in a Mexican bank?

The border banks are offering interest rates as high as 6.5 to 7 percent on their dollar accounts, depending on their location.

However, dollar accounts would be transferred at an unfavorable rate based on the pre-crisis value of the ruble.

Most of reserves spent went into the pockets of ordinary Russians or dollar accounts of those better off.