“It’s not worth going to the ATMs that are in small banks, you only find money in the most central ones,” observes Pedro Luis, a 62-year-old from Havana who visited several municipalities in Havana this Tuesday to try to withdraw cash from his account. banking. “In the end I only decided on Obispo Street, and because those are in a very touristy area.”
The shortage of cash puts in check any daily operation in Havana. From paying in a cafeteria to paying for the service in a hairdresser, they can be hampered by a lack of money. “You have to leave early to queue up at the ATMs and wait for them to be filled when the banks open, but by noon most of them are empty.”
At the bank on Conill Street, very close to Ayestarán Avenue, an employee attributes the problem to the fact that “the prices of everything have risen and now people need more bills to pay.” In the small branch, located in an area where “not many people pass through”, the cash only lasts a few hours in the morning. “People from Diez de Octubre, Rancho Boyeros and even Lisa come here to try to use the ATMs.”
But this Tuesday, frustration was painted on the faces of those who approached this bank because “before ten o’clock in the morning we had already run out of cash at the ATM, although certain small amounts could still be withdrawn from the cash register” , acknowledges the branch worker. “The problem is that to carry out this operation, the name on the card must match the name on the identity card and there are many people who withdraw from ATMs with someone else’s card.”
“Soon we are going to have to go out with a wheelbarrow to carry the money that is needed in a single day because the wallets do not fit so many papers”
“The bills that run out the fastest are those of 50 and 100 pesos, that’s why sometimes you can get 500, but the cashier rejects the operation if it includes a fraction that has several denominations,” he explains to this newspaper. “Also, customers now come looking for more cash at once so they don’t have to stand in line several times a week, that has triggered demand.”
“Soon we are going to have to go out with a wheelbarrow to carry the money that is needed in a single day because there are no longer so many papers in the wallets,” a young woman who queued for the ATM located in the ground floor of the Ministry of Transportation in the Plaza de la Revolución municipality. “Cash is gone like water and now the 10 and 20 bills are almost useless because nothing is so cheap.”
To get around the difficulties, some private businesses offer the customer the possibility of paying through Transfermovil, the application that allows the same to pay the electricity bill as to make transfers to another customer. “Many people prefer to do it that way because they save the queue at the cashier,” says Rodniel, an employee at a restaurant on Calle San Lázaro. “Our clientele is mostly young and in those ages the use of Transfermovil is very generalized”.
In some hotels the rule has been extended that you can only pay with magnetic cards, which can be in Cuban pesos, freely convertible currency or belong to a foreign bank. “We don’t work with cash,” explains an employee at the cafeteria of the newly opened Grand Aston hotel on the Havana coast. Some clients, at the time of closing the account, add a tip in CUP for the waiters.
“I walked all the way down Calle Línea, from the tunnel near Playa and I didn’t find a single ATM with money. In the end I ended up at the bank at 23 and J, which, being so central, had cash but, of course, the queue I made was of more than an hour,” lamented another client on Tuesday night who had to delay his dinner at a restaurant because “they only accept payment in cash.” By the time he finally got the extraction done, it was already past ten, and the romantic moment with his girlfriend had faded.
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