Cuba - 5 Cuban Pesos - P-103S - Specimen Foreign Paper Money

5 Pesos, P-103S. Specimen. Front and back shown.

The Cuban peso (in Spanish peso cubano, ISO 4217 code: CUP) also known as moneda nacional, is the official currency of Cuba. The Cuban peso historically circulated at par with the Spanish-American silver dollar from the 16th to 19th centuries, and then at par with the U.S. dollar from 1881 to 1959. The Castro government then introduced the socialist planned economy and pegged the peso to the Soviet ruble.

The Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 resulted in a Special Period of difficult economic adjustments for Cuba. From 1994 to 2020 the Cuban peso co-circulated with the Cuban convertible peso (ISO 4217 code "CUC"; colloquially pronounced "kook" in contrast to the CUP, often pronounced "koop"), which was convertible to and fixed against the U.S. dollar, and which was generally available to the public at a rate of US$1 = CUC 1 = CUP 25. State enterprises under the socialist planned economy, though, were entitled to exchange CUPs into CUCs and U.S. dollars at the official, subsidized rate of US$1 = CUC 1 = CUP 1, within prescribed limits.

From 1 January 2021 Cuba implemented the so-called "Day Zero" of monetary unification which abolished the Cuban convertible peso as well as the 1 CUP/USD rate for state enterprises. Henceforth the Cuban Peso became the only legal tender in Cuba, CUCs were converted at the rate of 24 CUP/CUC, and a single official exchange rate of 24 CUP/USD became applicable for both public and private transactions. However, demand for hard currency made these exchange rates unavailable in the informal market. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_peso

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