Development and production team of Transfermóvil. Photo: Resumen English.
By Syara Salado Massip – May 28, 2024
E-commerce is the trade of goods and services through the Internet. A way of commercializing created to meet the demands of consumers who needed purchase and payment methods that simplify and give agility to their needs, save time and travel, taking advantage of the momentum of electronic communication and the application of new technologies.
Internet transactions that take place on mobile devices are known as mobile commerce, offering a fast and secure alternative to replace cash and physical cards, thus transforming financial and commercial transactions.
The multinationals that lead the sector in the world report revenues of billions of dollars for using this payment method, these large companies have created mobile payment applications sustaining their growth with the certainty that it will become the most used payment system. Multi-million dollar payment gateways such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, PayPal, Bizum, Zelle and Skrill are the most successful for the moment in the international market.
In 2015 the Cuban state set out to boost the informatization of its society, e-commerce in the world was already highly developed and in Cuba there was still nothing similar, so a small team of specialists, which at that time consisted of two professionals, set out with the maxim of creating a financial platform whose fundamental purpose was to facilitate and diversify payments in the island’s e-commerce ecosystem. Thus Transfermóvil was born, on February 10, 2015, a one hundred percent Cuban project, focused on solving the problems of Cuban society in the electronic age.
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The application that was developed jointly between ETECSA, Banco Popular de Ahorro (BPA), Banco de Crédito y Comercio (BANDEC) and Banco Metropolitano (BANMET) is constantly growing, evolving and developing, while diversifying services and functionalities for the benefit of the population.
It currently has 4.76 million users and performs more than 100 million transactions per month. Throughout these 9 years of its consummation, other entities have been incorporated, contributing to solving the needs of the people and the Cuban State, favoring the streamlining of procedures, payment of services, reducing the time of the population, saving mobility and paper emission, which also contributes to the care of the environment.
Behind the recognized payment gateway about thirty professionals of the development and production team of digital media belonging to the Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA) are involved and are responsible for the sustainability and evolution of Transfermóvil.
“Teamwork is much more solid, it has to be more precise, we have to work like a clock, like a well-coordinated machine, where each one does his part under a strategy, following a script that we make together,” confesses Julio Antonio García Trápaga, leader and creator of Transfermóvil, who describes the formula for success. First he explains the need for perseverance, all the fuel that can be collected, secondly, health to be able to endure the journey and thirdly, the love to deliver it. “Teamwork has to be between people who get along well, who understand each other, they don’t have to be friends, but excellent partners, who understand each other (…) but that is not enough, you have to put a lot of passion and a lot of commitment.”
They are a team made up mostly of young people who know very well the responsibility that falls on them. They confess to feeling a lot of pressure because of the great impact that the platform has had on society, but they are filled with pride when they are out of the office and see that they have provided an essential tool that today is enjoyed with great acceptance from users.
“Transfermóvil like any other project is more than technological, it is social, it is human (…) there are many more days that we are tense, worried and busy (…) it takes a creative component this work, it is not a recipe that you copy, everything you have to land it, study the society, move in the country and decide what is wrong and fix it.”
The implementation of payment gateways for e-commerce of this type in the world exceeds 20 million dollars, not including the technical assistance that comes with licenses and updates, not to mention the technological dependence, economic interests and even security. Transfermóvil is a milestone in the development of technology conceived for Cuba, which comes out of the collective intelligence of its developers trained in the faculties and schools of high studies of the Cuban public university. Developing something like this in any country in the world requires an immense work of computer engineering, highly skilled programmers and designers, but when it comes to a country like Cuba, which the United States, leader in the communications industry, has been blockading inhumanly for 62 years, it becomes an even greater challenge.
Making it work day after day overcoming a thousand imponderables, advancing throughout the island, even offering discounts for users who use it in different payment methods and different forms of state, private and small and medium enterprises trade, is the product of the commitment that this talented group of young people, applying the concepts of science and innovation, have achieved for the betterment of Cuban society.
Julio Antonio García Trápaga, leader and creator of Transfermóvil.
