The Cuban government announced a new digital service called MiTurno in the Transfermóvil app, which will allow citizens to reserve their spot in a virtual line for the purchase of foreign currency at the exchange houses, Cadecas.
This service, which replaces the Ticket platform, will be available in the coming days and aims to facilitate access to foreign currency in a context of increasing demand and limited supply in a country.
It is important to highlight that the previous model of this service effectively disappeared because nobody sells foreign currency to the government. In the informal market, the US dollar reached a price more than triple that. It is now over 320 pesos and the euro is above 335 CUP.
The Director of Support and Development of the Digital Products Division of ETECSA, Julio Antonio García Trápaga, explained to CubaSí that this system is part of the latest version of Transfermóvil.
Through MiTurno, users will be able to reserve their spot in the virtual queue, check the progress of the waiting list, and cancel their request if they wish.
This system will be available for users of the country's three main banks (Banco Popular de Ahorro, Banco Metropolitano, and Banco de Crédito y Comercio), as well as for the unbanked through the mobile wallet MiTransfer.
How will the virtual queue service for buying foreign currency work?
The process to request an appointment is relatively simple and, according to the regulations, does not require advanced technical skills. Once authenticated in the app, users must select the option MyTurno, where they can choose the currency exchange service, the province, and the Cadeca branch they wish to visit.
After completing the form and paying a fee of 10 CUP, the system will assign a queue number and send an SMS to the user with the necessary information, including the position on the waiting list.
The president of the Central Bank of Cuba, Marta Sabina Wilson González, had already warned that the sale of foreign currency by Cadeca will depend on the amounts that these entities are able to acquire, meaning that access to foreign currency will be conditioned by daily availability.
Limitations and conditions of the service
Each customer will be able to book up to four appointments, linked to different Identity Card numbers, and can only be registered in one queue at a time. Additionally, if they are unable to attend on the assigned date, the user will have the option to adjust their availability before Cadeca confirms the appointment.
This new service from Transfermóvil will also allow users to check the status of their turn at any time, and they will receive notifications 24 hours before it is their turn to make a purchase. Not showing up on the assigned date will result in the loss of the turn and the right to buy the foreign currency.
Transfermóvil has over 5.2 million users and has surpassed 900 million transactions so far in 2024. The success of MiTurno will depend on the availability of foreign currency in the Cadecas, a problem that has generated frustration among the population due to the chronic shortage of foreign currency in the regime's coffers.
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