Greece appears to be getting back normal capital control wise. The Greek central bank official loosened controls a little on foreign payments.
http://news.yahoo.com/greece-loosens-ca ... ector.html
"The daily limit (on money transfers) has been raised to 100,000 euros from 50,000 euros," central bank governor Yannis Stournaras told reporters, adding that this covered almost 70 percent of requests.
Greek businesses have been hit by limits on transferring money abroad to pay for imports of raw material and other items since capital controls started on June 29, and have had to apply to a special committee for permission to pay their foreign suppliers, a time-consuming process.
Why is this important?
It affects the import of foreign goods in Greece.
So for instance fuel arrives normally via pipeline or tanker. A tanker holds literally millions of $ of fuel that has to be paid for before the cargo is discharged. No wire transfer (or letter of credit) no fuel delivery.
Obviously a single delivery like this is beyond the cap and central bank approval is still required but it illustrates the issue facing businesses in Greece.
Especially when you remember that food, medicine and similar key supplies are imported every day in large quantities. BTW that is why the cap permits only 70% of the transactions. Those 30% requiring approval generally are large and/or expensive shipments of vital goods. They will be delayed by the bureaucracy of central bank approval for the release of the funds.
Most Americans have trouble wrapping their head around this type of control since we not have experience with capital controls. However, imagine if you want to purchase something large, you have cash in the bank to purchase it so you write a check for the amount due but then had to go to nearest US Federal Reserve office (which is likely in another state) to fill out a form, wait in line, explain what you were doing and why, pay a fee ( an additional bribe is also not unusual) to get the official rubber stamp on the form and then give a copy to both your bank for their files and the seller along with your payments, assuming the transaction is approved of course.
BTW, If the central bank says no, then you are SOL for that transaction. You then need to structure the transaction in such a way to lawfully avoid the capital controls (assuming that can be done).
Now imagine that on a country wide basis for all businesses.
It is very likely that these added steps will slow down commerce and add costs that have to passed along in the cost of sales.
