On 7 April 2026 CADECA, Cuba's state exchange network, announced that its offices would begin accepting cash dollar remittances1. Analysts at the Havana Consulting Group and the diaspora outlet CiberCuba attribute the move to an attempt by the Cuban state to recapture flows that have migrated to the informal "banquero" network, a web of more than 150 unlicensed hand-to-hand money-transfer operators serving Cuban households.
The underlying flows have collapsed on the formal side. Remittances are running 70 per cent below the 2019 baseline of roughly $3.7 billion, and more than 95 per cent of diaspora transfers now move through informal channels. Two specific shocks drove the collapse. Western Union reportedly suspended Cuba transfers in February 2025 after Orbit S.A., Cuba's designated remittance processor, entered the OFAC Cuba Restricted List. A further 1 per cent federal tax on cash remittances, legislated by the Trump administration, took effect on 1 January 2026. Against that backdrop, GAESA's formal remittance capture had already fallen to 4.13 per cent before the CADECA move.
What CADECA is offering is genuinely new. For most of the last decade Cuban retail banking has treated the peso as the only legitimate currency, with hard currency routed through the parallel MLC digital channel. Accepting cash dollars at state branches is a reversal of that policy, signalling that Havana values recaptured hard-currency flow above its previous dollarisation resistance. The test is short: the two to four weeks after 7 April should produce either an uptick in formal-channel volumes, visible in Havana Consulting Group or FIU estimates, or confirmation that the banquero network is now too embedded to displace. Either outcome is a material signal about the durability of Cuba's informal economy.
