• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia
TechPayPal Holdings

PayPal Brings Money Transfers to Cuba

By
Leena Rao
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Leena Rao
Down Arrow Button Icon
March 21, 2016, 11:45 AM ET
EBay Plans To Split Off PayPal As Mobile Payments Gain Momentum
PayPal signage is displayed in front of eBay Inc. headquarters in San Jose, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014. EBay Inc. is spinning off its PayPal division, heeding demands by activist shareholder Carl Icahn and giving the business independence it can use to contend with rising competition from Apple Inc. and Google Inc. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesPhotograph by David Paul Morris—Getty Images

As President Obama makes his historic visit to Cuba this week, online payments giant PayPal says it’s starting to bring its business to Cuba.

The effort is part of a deluge of interest by U.S. companies in Cuba including airlines, hotels and other tourist interests following the loosening of trade restrictions. PayPal CEO Dan Schulman, who is visiting Cuba this week along with President Obama, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, and many other CEOs, said that PayPal (PYPL) would start allowing money transfers to and from Cuba later this year.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.

Xoom (XOOM), founded in 2001, lets people send money, pay bills, and reload mobile phones from the United States to 37 countries. It is used widely by immigrants who send some of their earnings to family members back home. PayPal acquired Xoom in 2015 for $890 million.

Schulman said the opportunity for expansion is huge in Cuba, where $2 billion in cash is sent from the U.S. to Cuba annually. These U.S. remittances serve as 3% of Cuban GDP, he added. Because Xoom allows these remittances to take place digitally and via people’s phones, transferring money will be much easier, Schulman explained further.

For more on PayPal, watch this video:

Western Union (WU), a competitor to Xoom and the world’s largest money transfer company, also said it would start operating in Cuba this year.

PayPal isn’t the first payments technology company to start expanding business into Cuba. Payments upstart Stripe announced last week that it is starting to help Cuban entrepreneurs set up U.S. businesses.

About the Author
By Leena Rao
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • Future 50
  • World’s Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
Sections
  • Finance
  • Leadership
  • Success
  • Tech
  • Asia
  • Europe
  • Environment
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Health
  • Retail
  • Lifestyle
  • Politics
  • Newsletters
  • Magazine
  • Features
  • Commentary
  • Mpw
  • CEO Initiative
  • Conferences
  • Personal Finance
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
About Us
  • About Us
  • Editorial Calendar
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Diversity And Inclusion
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map

Latest in Tech

Photo of Sam Altman
AIOpenAI
Inside OpenAI’s fragile lead in the AI race, and the 8-week ‘code red’ to fend off a resurgent Google
By Jeremy Kahn, Alexei Oreskovic and Lee CliffordDecember 17, 2025
5 minutes ago
Big TechGoogle
Microsoft, Apple, Meta and Amazon’s stocks are lagging the S&P 500 this year—but Google is up 62% and AI investors think it has room to run
By Jeff John Roberts and Jeremy KahnDecember 17, 2025
35 minutes ago
Wiem Gharbi, left, and Tamar Gomez, cofounders of AI startup Ankar.
AIintellectual property
Exclusive: Palantir alums using AI to streamline patent filing secure $20 million in Series A venture funding
By Jeremy KahnDecember 17, 2025
4 hours ago
A group of three robots waiving hello to the audience from a stage.
AIEye on AI
Google researchers unlock some truths about getting AI agents to actually work
By Jeremy KahnDecember 16, 2025
13 hours ago
AIthe future of work
IBM, AWS veteran says 90% of your employees are stuck in first gear with AI, just asking it to ‘write their mean email in a slightly more polite way’
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezDecember 16, 2025
13 hours ago
Photo of Elon Musk
Startups & VentureSpaceX
A SpaceX IPO could be the largest public offering of all time—and Elon Musk’s biggest headache
By Jessica MathewsDecember 16, 2025
15 hours ago

Most Popular

placeholder alt text
Economy
America's $38 trillion national debt 'exacerbates generational imbalances' with Gen Z and millennials paying the price, warns think tank
By Eleanor PringleDecember 16, 2025
22 hours ago
placeholder alt text
Success
Meetings are not work, says Southwest Airlines CEO—and he’s taking action, by blocking his calendar every afternoon from Wednesday to Friday 
By Preston ForeDecember 15, 2025
2 days ago
placeholder alt text
Success
'I had to take 60 meetings': Jeff Bezos says 'the hardest thing I've ever done' was raising the first million dollars of seed capital for Amazon
By Dave SmithDecember 15, 2025
2 days ago
placeholder alt text
Future of Work
The job market is so bad, people in their 40s are resorting to going back to school instead of looking for work
By Sydney LakeDecember 16, 2025
1 day ago
placeholder alt text
Innovation
An MIT roboticist who cofounded bankrupt Roomba maker iRobot says Elon Musk's vision of humanoid robot assistants is 'pure fantasy thinking'
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezDecember 16, 2025
19 hours ago
placeholder alt text
Politics
Exclusive: After citations against Elon Musk’s Boring Company were suddenly withdrawn, federal regulators are now investigating Nevada OSHA
By Jessica MathewsDecember 16, 2025
9 hours ago

© 2025 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.