Iraida Calzadilla, a retired journalist from the state-run newspaper Granma and a professor at the Faculty of Communication at the University of Havana, spent eight hours this Friday waiting in line at the bank of the Ministry of Transportation to collect her pension, she reported in a story that encapsulates the daily ordeal of more than 1.7 million retired Cubans.
In a Facebook post titled "Back on the Curb," Calzadilla described a full day of waiting under the sun alongside elderly individuals with obvious physical impairments, all trying to withdraw up to 5,000 pesos—less than nine dollars at the informal exchange rate—within a banking system that she herself deems inhumane.
"Eight divine, sweltering, exhausting, and frustrating hours waiting in line at the bank located in the Ministry of Transport. Eight hours in the retirees' queue! A workday with nothing rewarding to remember and plenty of sadness in watching so many elderly people with obvious physical deterioration trying to reach the redeeming door of up to 5,000 pesos," he wrote.
The journalist explained that she had to sit on the edge of the sidewalk because standing was unbearable, and from that "low balcony," she observed the dynamics of a line marked by line cutters, shoving, and constant disputes.
Calzadilla pointed out that the inability to use digital transfers forces retirees to endure that torment month after month: "The alternative of transferring money anywhere is becoming increasingly impossible. One must live through all that anguish that precedes and persists during the time it takes to wait in that damned line to truly understand how vulnerable we are."
As a minimal solution, he suggested issuing numbered tickets to organize the lines, although the bank employee responded that it was "a queue problem" and that he could not intervene.
The testimony of Calzadilla was not the only one this Friday. In one of the comments on the post, Ricardo López Hevia, photojournalist for Granma and vice president of the Cuban Journalists' Union, described what he witnessed in just 10 minutes at the Bank of Monaco, in the municipality of Diez de Octubre.
"I saw shouting, crying out of helplessness, I witnessed blows and accusations at full volume and the trampling in all its forms. No one to control, nor to bring the endless chaotic line to a good conclusion. The Face of Misery has nothing worthy."
Both testimonies come from journalists within the official system, which underscores the seriousness of a crisis that the state newspaper Venceremos acknowledged on July 3: the banking situation "has ceased to be a banking difficulty and has become a social problem".
The collapse has structural roots. The mandatory banking system imposed since 2021 deposited salaries and pensions onto cards without the infrastructure to support withdrawals.
The official press has acknowledged that only 3.77% of transactions in Cuba are digital, and less than 10% of private businesses in provinces like Sancti Spíritus regularly accept transfers.
It is not the first time that Calzadilla has documented this ordeal. In June 2025, she had already reported being "left on the doorstep" of the Zanja bank to collect a pension that was not even given to her in full.
This Friday, the conclusion was as bitter as before: "We have raised so many voices to denounce these terror-filled days without any real solutions. What do we have left? To take some metocarbamol and duralgina, take a bath, and go to bed to rest our bones."
This Friday, the Central Bank of Cuba announced new measures to encourage digital payments, while promising immediate funds to businesses that accept them starting from August 1.
The citizen reaction was one of widespread skepticism: "the problem is that there is no cash in the banks", they summarized on social media.
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