A Cuban identified as Yasmila Otero Heredia published two videos on Facebook this week denouncing the chaos she encountered while visiting a state bank to apply for a loan, in a scene that captures the chronic dysfunction of the Cuban banking system.
In the main video, just over three minutes long, Yasmila describes a day designated for collecting payments for the physically disabled and retirees, which turned into a spectacle of disorganization: elderly people in wheelchairs, individuals with canes, and citizens with reduced mobility waiting for hours, some sitting on the floor without anyone offering a solution.
"Unbearable the number of elderly people in wheelchairs, with canes, with everything, the hours they have been lying there on the floor," the woman recounted, visibly indignant.
Yasmila spent an hour and a half outside the bank without being able to enter, forced to shout at the employee at the door to explain the reason for her visit. After that time, and following an additional half hour of insistence, all she received were some forms to begin the credit application process.
Far from just complaining, the Cuban proposed a concrete solution: for the bank to publish lists with days, times, and designated areas for each type of procedure, so that retirees, physically disabled individuals, and users of commercial services do not overlap in the same space at the same time.
"Why is it that the bank, which is a state institution with monopoly power in this country since it has no competition, cannot organize itself?" he asked.
His diagnosis was straightforward: "I believe that isn't anything difficult; it's just a matter of organizational and administrative inefficiency."
Yasmila's testimony is not an isolated case. Retirees and physically disabled individuals in Cuba have been waiting in line for months from three or five in the morning, even spending the night on the sidewalks on cardboard, with no guarantee of withdrawing money the next day. More than 1.7 million retirees depend on a collapsed system where minimum pensions do not exceed 4,000 Cuban pesos, which is less than seven dollars at the informal exchange rate.
Since June 2026, Banco Metropolitano has reduced the withdrawal limit from 5,000 to 3,000 pesos per transaction, further worsening the situation. In the province of Granma, the provincial government admitted that it did not have more than 400 million pesos to pay pensions for over 111,000 retirees. In Cárdenas, a retiree died due to injuries sustained during an assault while waiting in line to collect.
The official newspaper Venceremos from Guantánamo acknowledged on July 3 that the banking crisis “has ceased to be a banking difficulty and has become a social problem”. Three days later, the state media Cubadebate admitted the failure of the mandatory banking system imposed since 2021: barely 3.77% of transactions in Cuba are digital, and less than 10% of private businesses in provinces like Sancti Spíritus accept transfers regularly.
In response to the collapse, the regime approved a package of 176 measures that includes the authorization of private banking for the first time since 1959, although without a specific regulation or published implementation timeline.
Yasmila concluded her complaint with a question that encapsulates the frustration of millions of Cubans: "Is it really so difficult to maintain order and discipline and help people not struggle so much?"
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