Under President Clinton's moves to increase contacts between people in the United States and Cuba, people may now use Western Union to send wire transfers to their loved ones.
The company previously had been permitted to handle cash transfers only for emergency expenses or emigration costs.
The Cuban government holding company Cimex, which will run the Western Union operation on the island, in recent months has been busy building new Western Union outlets in gas stations and supermarkets. One will be located in the year-old Carlos III shopping mall, the largest modern commercial center in Havana.
Cimex officials approached about the new service did not want to comment, nor would they provide media access to the new Western Union offices.
But one passer-by, who declined to give his name, said Cubans were excited about the move.
For years, Cuban immigrants in the United States have relied on a network of agencies with links to businesses in Cuba to get money to friends and relatives on the island. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 sent Cuba into a severe economic crisis, Cubans have increasingly depended on cash remittances from relatives in the United States just to get by.
Even the Cuban American National Foundation, a prominent exile lobby group that opposes U.S. government moves toward detente with President Fidel Castro's government, has come out in favor of the resumption of Western Union service.
Consumers will be allowed to transfer up to $300 to the same household within a 90-day period, a figure that is less than what is allowed in transfers to other countries
The company is starting with 32 locations in Florida's Dade County and an equal number of sites in Cuba, with 19 in the Havana area.
``It's a fairly conservative rollout of service,'' Western Union spokesman Peter Ziverts said. ``We want to see how the service works.''
The State Department confirmed that the Western Union office had been approved for Cuba. The company had been ready to open an office there in 1994, but the deal was sidetracked when the Clinton administration banned remittances in retaliation for the mass exodus that occurred in August of that year.
Until recently, rules under the U.S. embargo against Cuba allowed only family members of Cubans on the island to send up to $300 in cash remittances every three months. But under new rules, anyone in the United States now can send that amount, as long as the money does not go to senior Cuban government or communist party officials.
Western Union will charge $29 for sending between $200 and $300 in cash. Agencies now offering the service to Cuba set their own prices.
© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press