A crowd of elderly people packed the Plaza de Dolores in Santiago de Cuba, trying to cash their pensions at the Banco Popular de Ahorro (BPA).
The scene was recorded by a neighbor, and the independent journalist Yosmany Mayeta Labrada shared it on his social media with a phrase full of irony: "No, it's not the carnival".
The video shows dozens of people gathered under the trees of the iconic colonial square, waiting for their turn to access money that the Cuban banking system can barely provide. This is one of the most recognizable public spaces in the city and holds significant symbolic impact.
The scene in Santiago de Cuba is a sad postcard that repeats itself throughout Cuba, where over 1.7 million retirees must endure wait times of between four and six hours to collect pensions that, at their lowest, barely reach 4,000 Cuban pesos, equivalent to less than seven dollars at the informal exchange rate of June 2026.
In Santiago de Cuba, many retirees start lining up from six in the evening the day before. Elderly individuals, some as old as eighty, spend the night on the sidewalks in front of the banks to secure a spot in line.
The BPA branch in Plaza Dolores serves around fifty retirees per day with priority service, a figure that bears no relation to the actual demand.
The crisis is not just logistical: it is structural
The government of the province of Granma officially admitted in June 2026 that it does not have the more than 400 million pesos necessary to pay its 111,000 retirees, and implemented a staggered payment scheme based on the daily cash income of each branch.
More than 50% of ATMs in Cuba are chronically inoperative or empty. Power outages reduce banking hours, and most private businesses do not deposit the cash they collect in banks, worsening the liquidity drought throughout the system.
Resolution 111/2023, which imposed forced banking, has not resolved the problem.
The vast majority of Cuban retirees do not own smartphones or have the technological knowledge to use digital transfers. "My card is only good as a keychain," a Cuban remarked in May 2026, summarizing the practical uselessness of digital solutions for an aging population.
The Central Bank launched pilot programs to pay pensions in shopping centers and at home, initially only in Havana, and in Holguín a similar program allows around 5,000 pensioners to receive cash directly from private businesses. However, these measures have very limited scope given the magnitude of the national issue.
Queues occur monthly in Holguín, Camagüey, Matanzas, Havana, and Santiago de Cuba. In April 2026, there were shoving and chaos in banks in Havana as retirees waited to receive their payments.
The official newspaper of the Communist Party, Granma, acknowledged on June 18, 2026, that "reality imposes urgent and necessary changes," a statement that contrasts with decades of silence regarding the deterioration of the system.
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