The Embassy of Mexico in Havana reported this Monday that it will resume consular services that require payment as of July 1, but “only by MLC card [moneda libremente convertible]or debit or credit card valid in Cuba”. The diplomatic headquarters also specified that the cards must be in the name of the user requesting the service.
The Mexican consulate had suspended the procedures on June 10, like those of other countries on the island, after a resolution of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) that from that moment prevented embassies from converting their accounts in pesos into foreign currency.
The Embassy of Panama has also announced on its social networks a readjustment in its payment system. From this Wednesday, the amounts required for each service will be charged in euros.
According to the statement, “after being treated at the Consulate” the applicant must deposit in the International Financial Bank (BFI) the equivalent in euros to the amount in dollars required by the consular fee. In the case of tourist and transit visas, the payment will be equivalent to 60 dollars, according to the official exchange rate that day.
The reforms in the payment system of the embassies of Mexico and Panama respond directly to instruction 1/2022 of the Central Bank of Cuba, which prevents diplomatic missions from exchanging the money collected in Cuban pesos for foreign currency.
The Embassy of Mexico in Havana will resume consular services that require payment as of July 1, but “only by MLC card”
In addition, the BCC determines that from the accounts in Cuban pesos (CUP) of the embassies and consulates it will no longer be possible to make “transfers to freely convertible currency accounts, nor payments abroad.”
The solution of the embassies to the decision of the Central Bank was the search for payment alternatives in euros or in MLC. For example, the Spanish Consulate in Havana, one of the busiest on the island, has already announced that as of July it will only accept the exact amount in euros and in cash for each procedure requested.
Both the BCC’s directive and the measures taken by the embassies worryingly affect the Cuban population, which does not have regular means to acquire foreign currency. The exchange rate for the euro in the informal market amounts to 120 pesos, while the dollar is around 100, rates far removed from the supposed official exchange rate (24 pesos to the dollar; 27 to the euro).
In the midst of an unprecedented migration crisis in Cuba, the process of applying for visas to different countries continues to become complicated and gives rise to other phenomena, such as fraud to obtain appointments, telephone fraud and forgery of documents.
The Belgian Embassy in Havana warned on its Twitter account about “signs of irregularity in the process of obtaining appointments for interviews [de] visa”. “The appointments in question will be cancelled”, affirms the legation, if any cheating is suspected in terms of the names or deadlines of the documents, “without the right to claim”.
It is to be hoped that, given the BCC’s measures and the urgency of the population to find ways to leave the country, other embassies and consulates in Havana will announce similar changes in their payment systems.
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