Havana/Starting this week, Banco Metropolitano allows you to withdraw cash at its offices with cards from Banco Popular de Ahorro (BPA) and Banco de Crédito y Comercio (Bandec) for the payment of a commission. The official statement, published on Monday, did not specify the amount, but 14ymedio confirmed this Wednesday that it is 30 pesos per transaction.
The maximum to withdraw, however, varies depending on each bank. “They have confirmed to me that the commission charged is 30 pesos and that you can withdraw up to 5,000 pesos,” says a client who approached the Banco Metropolitano headquarters at the intersection of O’Reilly and Compostela, in Havana, to request information. However, in neighboring Luyanó, in Diez de Octubre, this medium verified that the maximum to have in a transaction is 3,000 pesos, paying the same commission.
“I don’t know what this is about. All banks have a different withdrawal maximum. I don’t know if this has to do with the size of their vault and the allocation of money they have,” complains a client who came to ask for information at the headquarters of Banco Metropolitano at the intersection of O’Reilly and Compostela, in Havana.
Despite the announcement, which has been echoed by the official press, there is no guarantee of leaving the bank effectively.
Despite the announcement, which has been echoed by the official press, there is no guarantee of leaving the bank with cash. In other bank branches, cash with the Bandec card was not available early in the morning, because there are no POS (point-of-sale terminals). To this we must add that there is electricity for the use of these devices, that there are ATMs that serve them or that, in fact, there is still availability of money.
Extracting cash has become a full-time job for many Cubans. In places like San José de las Lajas, Mayabeque, 14ymedio has documented how dozens of retirees live an ordeal to access your money. They form early, between fatigue and fear, because a long wait to receive that cash can end in nothing, if the electricity goes out or if the money available in the branch runs out.
Although on paper the measure expands the alternatives to access physical money, the country’s lack of cash is more than proven, with hundreds of empty ATMs and others that no longer work – such as in Havana, where more than half are unusable – and the operational restrictions of the Cuban banking system.
“I don’t predict any success. I think it’s another measure, like the supposed extraction of cash in the rationing warehouses.”
“I don’t predict any success for him. I think it’s another measure“, such as the supposed extraction of cash in the rationing warehouses, which have no way of taking them to actual roads,” says a resident of Havana after learning of the Banco Metropolitano announcement.
In the publication of the measure in Cubadebatea user added: “And how are they going to guarantee the cash? If the retirees, after hours and hours of queuing, and sometimes days, most of the time only give a part of the retirement. We really have to find a solution to the cash problem. For those of us who pay us by card, we get paid and we still have no money because in many places we can’t buy.”
A month ago, Banco Popular de Ahorro admitted “the complex financial, economic and commercial situation facing the country, with a direct impact on commercial banks, (which) has caused low availability of freely convertible currencies, which does not allow for an immediate response to the growing demand of clients.”
That position published on April 6 by the official newspaper Rebel Youthwhich has already downloaded the information from its site but which can still be consulted with some tools, was in response to the complaint of Raúl Viso Zurita, a citizen with dual Cuban and Spanish nationality, who reported in January that BPA branch 3372, located at Hacendado 26, in Old Havana, prevented him from collecting in cash 170 dollars that corresponded to him of an aid of 325 euros granted by the Xunta de Galicia.
“The complex financial, economic and commercial situation facing the country, with a direct impact on commercial banks, has caused low availability”
“They are forcing me to deposit the dollars on the Classic card against my will. Receiving said currency in cash is a right that the Bank is violating with me,” Viso Zurita accused.
The lack of liquidity finds an explanation in the most recent report from the Center for Studies of the Cuban Economy (Ceec), corresponding to the second half of 2025, which includes devastating datasuch as the contraction of around 5% last year, which accumulates a drop of more than 15% since 2020. According to the Ceec report, which is an official institution, the economy worsened for the third consecutive year, largely, it states, due to the energy crisis that has weighed down the country since mid-2024.
“The economy deepened its contraction during the year, so that a pattern of stagnation and lack of recovery was consolidated,” indicates the document, which highlights the fall in external income, the decline in tourism and the deterioration of energy conditions in an adverse international context and with increased pressure from the United States.
