Western Union resumes money transfers to Cuba after ‘cybersecurity’ incident
Western Union resumed its money transfer services to Cuba on Thursday, after they were halted in January when the Cuban government reported a “cybersecurity incident” affecting its banking systems.
The service had been suspended since Jan. 28, a few days before a Cuban official announced a “cybersecurity incident” affected the country’s “electronic payment systems.”
Western Union said in a statement that clients will be able to send up to $2,000 in a single transaction from any of its U.S. locations, online or with its mobile app. The funds can be sent to people in Cuba with accounts at the Banco Popular de Ahorro, Banco Metropolitano S.A. and Banco de Crédito y Comercio.
“We understand our service is a crucial connection between those living in the U.S. and their family living in Cuba,” said Rodrigo Garcia Estebarena, president of Western Union North America and the Latin America division. “We are pleased to resume service to this vital corridor and provide essential money transfer services to those living on the island.”
The company said the funds would be available on the same day in Cuba, including weekends and holidays. The transfers are made in dollars but are deposited in accounts in MLC, Cuba’s virtual currency.
Many Miamians regularly use the service to send money to their families in Cuba. But sources in Cuba and the American business community have questioned how much of the remittance market Western Union is capturing after many transactions have moved to the informal market operating in dollars in recent years.
The company first had to close more than 400 offices in Cuba in late 2020 after the Trump Administration sanctioned Fincimex, Western Union’s processing partner on the island, for its ties with the Cuban military. Two years later, the Cuban government agreed to create a new financial entity to process remittances on the island, Orbit SA. Western Union resumed its services in March last year.
But since 2020, much has changed on the island. The economy has been in free fall, and shortages are widespread. Since government stores that sell products in MLC are usually empty, money transfers from abroad that can only be cashed in local Cuban currencies are less attractive. In theory, the MLC is a convertible currency. Still, the government has admitted its banks don’t have enough dollar reserves to cover its operations and rarely allow Cubans to get their money in dollars.
When Western Union was forced to leave the island in 2020, the money transfer business moved to informal channels, using people known as “mulas” to personally carry the cash into the country. New agencies have proliferated, allowing clients in the United States to send money via popular transfer services like Zelle. The agencies then pay people to deliver dollars in cash to the receiver on the island.
The informal remittance market has also been critical to the development of an emerging private sector on the island.
Since Cuba is cut off from most of the international banking system because of the U.S. economic embargo, Cuban entrepreneurs have used these same remittance agencies to get their money out of the island to pay providers abroad. They pay dollars or euros in cash to representatives of these agencies, and in turn the agencies pay the providers of supplies abroad for a fee. The agency can use the cash paid by the private business owners to deliver remittances inside the island, skipping the step of hiring people to carry the money into the country.
The informal system has raised some flags, as it could be used for money laundering. A Cuban-American woman who was arrested at Tampa International Airport in February was charged with smuggling $100,000 from Cuba. She said she had been paid to bring cash from the island to the United States several times a month.