The National Assembly of People's Power (ANPP) ordered the government and the Central Bank of Cuba to adopt new measures to improve banking services for the population, through the , approved on July 29 and published this Friday in the .
The regulation, signed by Juan Esteban Lazo Hernández, president of the legislative body, was unanimously approved during the Seventh Regular Session of the X Legislature, held at the Palace of Conventions in Havana, under the protection of Article 108, section d) of the Constitution of the Republic.
The agreement emerged as part of a proposal put forth by a deputy during the Extraordinary Session in June. Following that request, the ANPP reviewed the information presented by Juana Lilia Delgado Portal, president of the Central Bank of Cuba, regarding the state of banking and its effects on the population.
The first mandate states that the Central Bank must present to the State Council in August "an updated report on the measures and actions being implemented to improve banking services for the population."
The second task is to instruct the Government of the Republic to indicate to provincial and municipal administrations the necessary measures to strengthen actions aimed at improving those services.
The third point tasks the Commission on Economic Affairs of the National Assembly with monitoring the process and evaluating its results during that commission's meeting for the session period of December 2026.
The new regulations come three years after the implementation of mandatory banking, amidst a deterioration of the system that has restricted Cubans' access to cash and financial services.
Only 3.77% of transactions in Cuba are digital and more than half of the country's ATMs are either inoperable or out of cash.
The cash shortage has even compelled the transfer of functions typically handled by the banking system to private businesses. In Guantánamo, 113 establishments are handling pension payments for over 3,000 retirees due to the banks' inability to provide that service, while in Sancti Spíritus some businesses are applying surcharges of up to 40% for payments made via transfers.
In July, the Central Bank announced a package of corrective measures that included reducing the commission applied to merchants from 1.5% to 0.8%, eliminating the limit of 5,000 Cuban pesos for cash payments, and real-time crediting of transfers made within the same banking institution.
The agreement on bankarization was one of the texts approved during the session on July 29. On that day, the Labor Code, the Housing Law, the Agricultural and Forestry Land Law, and the Law on the Organization of the Central State Administration, among other regulations, were also adopted and published later in Official Gazette No. 67.
The Economic Affairs Commission will evaluate in December the results of the measures adopted, which will constitute the first formal institutional assessment of the compliance with the actions mandated by the ANPP.
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