American travelers headed to Cuba will finally be able to turn to plastic to foot their hotel and restaurant bills, as MasterCard and Fort Lauderdale-based Stonegate Bank said their debit cards are now active for use on the Communist island.

The companies are the first to help U.S. visitors ditch their cash in Cuba, a move made possible by the recent rapprochement between Havana and Washington, which has led to the re-establishment of diplomatic ties between the two neighbors, USA Today reported.

Some 10,000 merchants across the Caribbean nation can accept the debit cards, though ATM transactions will not be available until 2016, MasterCard and Stonegate Bank told the newspaper in statement. Nevertheless, hotels rooms, meals and all kinds of products and services are fair game, the financial firms added.

The new commodity does not come cheap, however, the Miami Herald pointed out. Opening a personal or business account with Stonegate Bank -- which handles the accounts of Cuba's diplomatic missions in the United States and is headquartered in Pompano Beach, Florida -- requires a minimum deposit of $2,500.

The change is made possible thanks to the bank's correspondent relationship with Cuba's Banco Internacional de Comercio, the newspaper added. David Seleski, Stonegate president and CEO, said he hoped other financial institutions would soon follow his company's example.

"This is the first step in relieving the burden of U.S. travelers carrying cash when traveling to Cuba and another step in normalizing commercial relations between the two countries," Seleski noted. "Hopefully, more issuing banks will help this process by approving credit and debit cards as well."

Jeff Wilson, the president of the GeoCentral division at MasterCard, earlier this week made sure that transactions in Cuba did, in fact, go through smoothly, as he personally used one of the debit cards to purchase one of Cuba's iconic cigars, USA Today detailed.

"As the infrastructure continues to develop, this milestone reinforces a collective effort ... to deliver our cardholders a convenient and safe way to pay when traveling to Cuba," Wilson noted.