• Every year on October 13, Cuba celebrates Bank Workers Day, which commemorates the nationalization of the banking sector in 1960.

Las Tunas, Cuba.- Amid a complex economic landscape marked by cash shortages, the intensification of the blockade, and the urgent need to revitalize production, the country’s leadership approved a package of 176 economic and social reforms, grouped into 22 thematic areas. Among them, theme number 11 places the banking and financial system at the center of the strategy.

Leancy Richard Collazo Tabasco, director of Branch 6441 of the Bank of Credit and Commerce (BANDEC in Spanish) in Las Tunas, explains that the institution is not a passive player in this process.

“As part of the transformations being implemented in the country, the bank will promote—through the provision of financing, access to foreign currency, and support for new economic actors.”

The executive explains that BANDEC Las Tunas is working in three specific areas within this framework: the digitization and expansion of banking services, the provision of financing for renewable energy, and what he calls “green banking” aimed at the non-state sector.

Support for solar power generation is one of the most tangible results. As reported by our media outlet in March of this year, the institution had granted 148 loans totaling more than 10,150,000 pesos for the purchase of solar panels, initially benefiting workers in priority sectors such as education and health, and later expanding the portfolio to include micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs in Spanish), cooperatives, and farmers. The minimum interest rate is 3 percent, regardless of the investment’s payback period.

Cash shortages are one of the problems that Collazo Tabasco identifies as a priority. The changes, he notes, include “providing cash so that non-state actors can make purchases and restock, since they face some difficulty due to cash shortages.”
Foreign currency support for the private sector to acquire goods and services is among the functions the institution undertakes under Axis 11.

Expanding access to banking services through “faster and more streamlined” procedures and real-time transactions in the current accounts of economic actors is another objective stated by the executive from Las Tunas.

“Generally speaking, BANDEC is present in all areas of the economy; in other words, it plays a fundamental role in the implementation of these measures.”