22OCT

Cuba clears first private exchange house

2 min read

17:12UTC

Banco Central de Cuba says a private exchange house has met its requirements; ADT 64 in Santa Clara opened as a central bank pilot on 31 August.

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PoliticsDeveloping

Key takeaway

Cuba licensed a private exchange house without publishing the rules for the next one.

Banco Central de Cuba confirmed in mid-September that a private exchange house had met its requirements, without naming it, making it Cuba's first licensed private exchange house⁠¹. ADT 64, a small private firm in Santa Clara, had opened on 31 August as a central bank pilot, while the informal dollar was rising against the peso. Its co-owner quoted 710 pesos to buy a dollar and 730 to sell.

Economist Pedro Monreal points out that the Gaceta Oficial holds no rule for this licence. Without one, a second private house has no published way to apply, Monreal says.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Cubans who need dollars or euros usually buy them on an informal street market. The state's own exchange outlets rarely have enough foreign currency. In mid-September Cuba's central bank said a privately owned exchange business had passed its checks, the first private one allowed in the country. A small firm in the city of Santa Clara called ADT 64 had been trading since 31 August as a trial. The rules for getting this kind of licence have not been published, so other businesses do not know how to apply.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Cuba's June reform package authorised private exchange houses and banks, but as of 1 July no licence had been issued. The central bank chose a pilot rather than a public licensing round.

The central bank's floating rate needs a base of real transactions. State banks sell few dollars, so a private house that buys and sells under supervision gives the bank trades to measure.

Keeping the licence out of the gazette lets the bank control entry case by case, without committing to criteria others could invoke.

What could happen next?

Meaning
The central bank is treating private exchange as a data source for its floating rate rather than as an open market.
Opportunity
If licensing rules are published, private houses in other provinces could pull some trade out of the informal market.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: China opened foreign-exchange swap centres from 1985, starting in Shenzhen, where firms could trade retained foreign currency at a market rate beside the official one. The legal second market gave Beijing price data and a route to unify the two rates, which it did in January 1994.

Counter-parallel: In April 2018 Iran's central bank set a single official rate and ordered exchange houses to stop trading at market prices. Trade moved to unlicensed dealers, and the rial kept falling, so closing the legal private channel removed the state's view of the real price.

ADT 64's quotes of 710 to buy and 730 to sell sat above El Toque's informal cash rate of 700 on 16 September. The house sets its price as a margin over the central bank's quote and settles by bank transfer, so it sells legality and traceability rather than a cheaper dollar. Its spread of 20 pesos, under 3 per cent, is narrow for a market short of dollars.

Structurally, private clients must justify the source and use of funds, and small firms must show a supplier's offer. Those checks limit the house to documented trade, so it cannot absorb the cash demand that drives the informal market.

Consensus view: Economist Pedro Monreal argues that a licence with no published rules legalises one operator without opening a market. With no public minimum capital, eligibility, reporting or revocation terms, a second firm cannot know what to file, and he says a representative sample of private rates would need at least ten houses in five provinces, Havana among them.

Counter-view: A Banco Central de Cuba official has said the pilot's value lies in the data it generates. The central bank wants its floating official rate to rest on executed, settled and confirmed deals, and a licensed house that records every trade supplies exactly that, so one tightly watched operator serves the bank's purpose better than many.

Key tension: Whether the central bank will publish licensing rules for further houses, or keep private exchange as a single supervised pilot feeding its own rate.

Sources:CubaNet

Mentions:Gaceta Oficial →Havana →Iran →Shenzhen →China →Beijing →Cuba →Banco Central de Cuba →ADT 64 →Santa Clara, Cuba →Pedro Monreal →El Toque →

First Reported In

Update #15 · Cuba opens oilfields, US cuts dollar routes

CubaNet· 22 Oct 2026

Read original →

Different Perspectives

UN General Assembly

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Mexican Navy (Secretaría de Marina)

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Pedro Monreal, independent Cuban economist

Monreal says the gazette contains no rule for the exchange-house licence ADT 64 received, so nobody knows how a second firm could apply. He says a representative rate would need at least ten houses in five provinces, Havana included.

Prisoners Defenders and OCDH (Madrid-based exile monitors)

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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier

Uthmeier announced a no-bond state warrant for Raúl Castro on 19 October over the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown, after reopening the state investigation last year. The four men killed flew for a Miami exile group, and the warrant restricts Castro's travel rather than reaching him in Cuba.

Cuban government (Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla)

Rodríguez said on 21 October that Washington is pressing governments to abstain or leave the hall in the 28 October UN vote and called Florida's Raúl Castro warrant worthless. Havana is presenting its October oil and trade rules as openings and the US measures as an energy blockade.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.