Cuban government will change bank accounts in CUC to pesos

In the context of monetary unification in Cuba, the bank accounts in CUC They will be changed to pesos (CUP) with an exchange rate of 1×24, the government confirmed this Friday.

An article from the official portal Cubadebate he clarifies that “the accounts that remain in the banks and that are in CUC will be converted to Cuban pesos, always respecting the current exchange rate.”

The text recalls that Marino Murillo Jorge, president of the Permanent Commission for the Implementation and Development of the country’s economic Guidelines, clarified that even when the CUC stops circulating, Cubans will have at least six months to change their savings into pesos in this currency or deplete them through purchases in the market: stores will collect that cash on purchases and return the changes in CUP.

Those CUCs, like the one that remains in the banks, will maintain the current exchange value (1×24), the article details.

It also explains that the CUC accounts of Cuban collaborators in missions will be converted to Cuban pesos, with the current exchange rate.

The monetary and exchange unification that the Cuban government foresees will generate price increaseTherefore, the savings of residents in the country will lose purchasing power. It is scheduled for the first day of an undetermined month, but everything indicates that it will occur on an immediate date, no later than February 2021.

Although the Government does not clarify which products and services will raise their cost, in a scenario of price increases, savings accounts in pesos will mean less money.

“You cannot think that we are going to take those savings and multiply them by three, or by four, so that they do not lose purchasing power. But you have to do other analyzes, not everything is linear,” said Murillo.

Recently, the head of the Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernández, affirmed that to alleviate this situation a wage reform is planned, but that this will invariably lead to the elimination of gratuities and undue subsidies.

For his part, the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel has stressed that the monetary and exchange unification will not magically solve the problems of the economy, but will raise “the productivity of labor and a more efficient performance of the productive forces.”

The issue of currency exchange worries Cubans. Given the current uncertainty about the date and rate of change of the process, the inhabitants of the island have wanted to take their precautions so as not to be surprised by the “Zero Day” of the unification.