Cubans Between QR Codes and Disconnected Realities
HAVANA TIMES – Technology is on the way to assuming a central role in Cubans’ lives. However, it’s a road full of contradictions, marked by scarcity, shortages and inflation.
In the current context, the ease of paying your electricity bill, recharging your phone, or sending money to another person in the national territory from home sounds idyllic. What previously involved long lines, physical journeys and cash in hand can now be resolved in minutes on a touchscreen.
A platform such as Transfermovil holds the promise of bringing a breath of relief to people. But, like everything on this island, it has become a new challenge. To use it, you need a telephone, a card with a balance on it, and a signal that holds steady at the precise right moment.
The Transfermovil platform was developed by ETECSA, the State telecommunications company, in conjunction with the State banks. In 2024, it surpassed 1.2 billion operations and had more than 95,000 business subscribers. At first glance, the numbers are very encouraging. Unfortunately, these statistics hide deep gaps and fragmented realities.
Not all Cubans can access this “novelty” under equal conditions. Connectivity is limited and unequal – some urban areas enjoy 4G coverage and public Wi-Fi networks, but the signal in the rural communities is inconsistent. Adding to that are the frequent electricity blackouts that paralyze any intent to operate a digital device.
The blackouts can last for hours or even days, and that transforms the use of electronic services into an exercise in frustration. The generation gap is also much in evidence: older adults or those with scarce access to technology don’t understand how a payment app functions; or how to scan a QR code; or how to protect themselves from online scams.
The government is currently moving towards greater use of online banking. Right now, over fifty percent of the taxes are paid digitally; most of the State companies no longer pay in cash; and by law, all private businesses must have a functioning QR code.
I believe that the digitalization of Cuba should involve more than a show window of statistics, and be much less be an imposition from “above.” Each process requires careful study, and a way to fit in with the realities Cubans experience – like that doctor who uses Transfermovil but charges his phone at a neighbor’s house because there’s no electricity in his; like the grandmother who must ask her grandchild to pay her gas bill on the phone, because she doesn’t understand how; or the entrepreneur who must figure out how to keep his business going between a Wi-Fi zone and the neighborhood blackouts.
On this island where the QR codes coexist with blackouts, and private initiatives share the stage with chronic shortages, a digital future is certainly possible, but it can’t be built with technology alone. For the transformation to be sustainable, it must be accompanied by real investments in infrastructure and inclusive public policies.
Currently, we’re experiencing this “modernity” amid the practices of yesterday – the ration books, the lines to withdraw money in cash, or to effect transactions that are still not digital. We are moving between two eras, one that aspires to electronic business and total digital banking, and another that still relies on paper.