14ymedio, Madrid, April 8, 2024 — ‘Bancarización’* — banking reform — is stagnating in Cuba despite the many hours spent promoting it in the official media. Last year, 30% of banking operations were carried out in cash, despite the fact that only 77% of the 800 ATMs on the Island dispense it, according to data offered by the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC).
In a meeting held this Saturday attended by Miguel Díaz-Canel and Manuel Marrero, the banking authorities explained that at the end of 2023, 91% of state entities and 74% of “non-state management forms” maintained accounting activity in their accounts.
The insistence on getting the vast majority of operations to be carried out electronically has made an important advance, since 68% of them did so. However, this is not enough for the goal set, said Yamile Berra Cires, first vice president of the BCC, who explained that there are still problems.
Some 91% of state entities and 74% of the “forms of non-state management” maintained accounting activity in their accounts
Among them, she cited the resistance on the part of suppliers of goods and services to execute collections through electronic payment channels, inadequate organizational and control measures by regulatory entities and economic actors who do not regularly deposit or use their personal bank accounts for the economic activity of their businesses.
In August 2023, the BCC approved several provisions to promote bancarización in the face of the shortage of banknotes in the country. Among them, cash withdrawals were limited, and all economic actors were forced to offer an electronic means of payment to customers, which in turn would result in greater control of operations and reduction of fraud.
The resistance of the population is verified in the operations quantified by the BCC at Saturday’s meeting, to which the uncontrollable – and very high – amount of those produced in the informal market should be added, which would drastically reduce the official data.
The meeting was also a review of all the initiatives that the entity should have to boost the economy and “correct the distortions,” but according to the official press, the