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The Metropolitan Bank announced this Friday that banking channels are now available for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (mipymes) and non-agricultural cooperatives to request the purchase of foreign currency, in accordance with the new foreign exchange market design approved by the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC).
The banking entity clarified on its Facebook profile that these transactions will be carried out under the conditions set forth in the new design of the currency market, recently approved by the BCC.
The sale of foreign currency will take place once a month and will be subject to a maximum amount, calculated based on 50% of the average income in the applicant's tax account over the last three months, divided by the current exchange rate of Segment III (floating exchange rate).
The procedure is governed by the provisions of Resolution 128 of 2025, which establishes the Foreign Exchange Market Regulations, as well as by Circular No. 3 of 2025 from the Vice President of the Central Bank.
All transactions must be conducted through banking channels; that is to say, payment in Cuban pesos will be made from the fiscal account and the foreign currency acquired will be credited to the non-state economic actor's account in foreign currency.
Applications must be processed exclusively through the Metropolitan Online service, using the bank's Remote Banking platform.
Antes de ejecutar cualquier operación, la entidad realizará las verificaciones correspondientes de identidad, cuentas y trazabilidad, en cumplimiento de los requisitos de control y diligencia establecidos en la normativa vigente.
The applicable exchange rates will be those set by the Central Bank of Cuba for Segment III on the day of the transaction, including the authorized profit margins.
For additional information, Banco Metropolitano indicated that customers can contact them via email (clientes@banmet.cu) and the phones provided by the institution.
The authorization of these operations comes just a few weeks after the enactment of Decree-Law 113/2025, which paved the way for a partial, institutionalized dollarization of the Cuban economy.
This regulatory package, presented by the Government as a "temporary" measure, marked an explicit break from the failed Monetary Reform initiated in 2021 by officially recognizing a multimonetary system and granting the State the authority to decide who can operate in foreign currency and under what conditions.
A key element of this new framework is that access to foreign currency is not seen as an open market mechanism, but rather as a managed capability.
Through instruments such as the Currency Access Capacity Assignment (ACAD) and the monthly limits imposed on purchases, the State maintains control over the flow of dollars and euros.
The above introduces a structural segmentation between economic actors who manage to access foreign currency and those who remain confined to the circuit of the Cuban peso, with direct implications for competitiveness, prices, and economic inequality.
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