MIAMI, United States. – The Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) reported this Monday in a statement that “from this moment the financial and banking institutions will accept cash deposits of US dollars in bank accounts.”
The measure entered into force after the publication in the Extraordinary Official Gazette No. 26 from April 10 of the Resolution 63 of 2023 of the Central Bank of Cuba, which repeals the Resolution 176 June 2021, which prohibited the acceptance of the US dollar in cash by banks and non-bank financial institutions.
According to the BCC, “the repeal of the Resolution 176/2021 responds to the current circumstances and priorities of economic policy”.
“The current economic scenario of the country, having overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, with the start of the revival of tourism, the resumption of the presence of foreign visitors and the gradual recovery of productive activity and services, advises taking this step, even when the measures of maximum economic pressure that have extremely reinforced the economic blockade remain in force, particularly those aimed at hindering Cuba’s external financial flows and preventing deposits of US dollars in cash abroad,” the BCC justified.
According to that institution, the exchange market established in August 2022, among other measures, created “the conditions for accepting, as it was in the past, both the possibility of making deposits in US dollars in financial and banking institutions, as well as of receiving that currency in cash from exchange operations”.
However, the BCC said that “since the policy of economic pressure that gave rise to the June 2021 decision remains in force, the underlying problem has not been resolved.”
“Consequently -continues the BCC note-, it will be necessary to monitor the evolution of banking and financial activity from this new step, with the confidence that it will be beneficial for national economic activity and for the population, and with the willingness to make the adjustments that are pertinent according to their behavior”.
In June 2021, the Cuban regime announced that would temporarily suspend the acceptance of US dollar cash bank deposits. The measure, as justified by the BCC at the time, responded “to the obstacles imposed by the economic blockade of the United States so that the national banking system can deposit cash in US dollars that is collected in the country abroad.”
Also at that time, The island’s authorities specified that the duration of the suspension would depend “on the elimination of the restrictions that prevent the normal functioning of the procedures for the export of US currency.”
