14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, October 6, 2023 — There is more news about bancarización.* The state press analyzes the relationship between agromarkets and electronic payments and describes it as “a union that is not yet consolidated.” It’s a good example that bancarización as a hierarchical order issued by the regime, mandatory for all, is not well focused. The reason? It has already been highlighted in previous entries. Cubans prefer to make cash payments and use paper money. They don’t trust the banks and what the communists call “electronic payments.” What is not in demand can hardly get anywhere. The law of supply and demand makes its way inexorably into the Cuban communist economy. What we are seeing is a rebellion of the Cuban people against the regime, and we will see who wins.
The state press complains that in certain areas of the country there is slowness and resistance when it comes to adopting electronic commerce mechanisms in agromarkets. In these spaces in which many Cubans solve their basic food needs, bancarización is of no interest. Neither to buyers nor to sellers, and, therefore, in businesses that now have the QR Code for payment, the use of electronic means is almost null. Interesting.
This information is not trivial. In those agromarkets, thousands of transactions take place every day that materialize, apparently, in cash. People don’t use electronic mechanisms, despite having the facilities for it. The payment by digital e-commerce platforms for one or two malangas (sweet potatoes), a few bananas and two or three mangoes does not justify using bancarización.
And although it’s true that the average transaction in these agromarkets is small in value, although at current prices nothing is cheap in Cuba, as numerous operations are carried out every day, the weight of operations in the total retail market is very high, and this lowers the regime’s expectations to extend bancarización to all branches of the economy. People pay in cash not only for food. In these agromarkets, many other transactions escape the trap of electronic payments, like the training of workers and the leasing of premises.
It’s in this area of the agromarkets where it will be very difficult for the regime to achieve the integral bancarización of operations, and, t