Cuban government undertakes adjustments to electronic payment services

With its usual laxity, the Island's regime reported this Friday that a six-hour shutdown will be carried out in the electronic payment systems, linked to magnetic cards of various kinds, electronic ATMs and virtual transfer apps, with a view to expand the service and standardize its operation.

In an informative note released by the press and on social networks, Banco Metropolitano reports that “starting at 12 midnight on Saturday the 24th and until 6:00 am on Sunday the 25th, work will be carried out to transform the technological infrastructure.” of Payment Services RED S.A.”

Later, the note specifies that “To carry out these actions, it is necessary to stop the technological equipment that supports the services of electronic payment channels, associated with all operations in ATMs, the EnZona platform, the network of terminals. of Points of Sale (POS) (…) in addition to transfer operations between banks through the Transfermóvil platform.”

Despite the reassuring tone, the apologies offered for all the inconvenience caused and the inclusion in this process not only of the RED cards but also those associated with UnionPay and MIR, one cannot blame those who feel a turn of confusion, since for many Cubans Electronic payment is another Way of the Cross that must be navigated to survive.

The outbreak of the scandal overalleged cyber attack “from abroad” which prevented the process of increasing state prices for a group of basic services, including fuel, placed the issue of the viability of electronic financial systems at the center of the public arena.

Always with the perspective that we live sitting on a keg of gunpowder, about to explode, and the “dangers” to national security that the Internet and cellular telecommunications imply, the Castro Government gives another turn of the screw to the gigantic screw of the control of its citizens.

It is no secret to anyone that the Internet took a while to be deployed in Cuba due to the reluctance of the aging and obtuse leadership of the country that knew perfectly well the advantages of the network of networks, but it was convenient for them to use it for their objectives, but not give the opportunity to the Cubans to get out of their usual ostracism.

Even into the 21st century, many of us received our meager salary in bank envelopes and we had to wait long periods for the accounting workers in our workplaces, also poorly paid and omitted, to finish their marathon days of envelopes and payment.

When charging by magnetic card was gradually imposed, there was no thought—because it has never been done, nor is it done, and at this point it will not be done—to relativize the availability of ATMs, the quality of the cards, and equate the payroll and communication systems. of the Cuban work centers with the bank branches in clear modernization.

At the end of the day, as they say, electronic transfers became another source of stress for ordinary Cubans as they had to face, like a punishment, the slowness of an overused and aging network, the fragility of the magnetic cards that They lose their skin by losing all the information and forcing an expedition to the bank to change it.

Likewise, the immanent ghost of the constant lack of connectivity of the PODs comes to haunt, even in the stores in MLC, where after waiting in line to enter, carefully choosing what you are going to buy so that you have enough money and waiting in an immense queue for a single checkout even if there are a hundred, if the connectivity fails and even if the amount on the card has been deducted, you have to leave the purchase in the store and go to the bank to request a refund, with a queue, abuse and precariousness included.

We can only hope that the “technological shutdown” only lasts the planned six hours in the morning and we do not have to face more days with slowed down service and the usual disconnections; above all, due to the need to believe, although we know that it is for pleasure, that it is “the objective of increasing the availability, capacity, and agility of electronic payment services, while optimizing operations.”