Sending money these days

I know its been covered before but its been awhile and things seem to be changing since. Question is what are the common ways you guys are sending money to yourselves these days for expenses here?

I've used Xoom for years myself and was alright with it as it was a little more expensive but the slight exchange wasn't a big deal due to convenience. Now since the newest nightmare has started their take has increased even further to 2 peso's to the dollar. So $2k and you lose $100 but they tout *free* money transfer from USD to PHP.

My US account doesn't offer me any cheap solution and I have a BDO account but PHP. Debating getting a BDO dollar account but the $500 requirement min balance is annoying but doable since at least its still in USD. Not sure which remittance places in town carry USD let alone allow $2k range of transfers as well.

Gotta find a new solution that's not such a loss as xoom has gotten greedier. Loss is about double now.

 

Transferwise! www.transferwise.com found it a better deal even if you had a dollar account since you lose a bit of peso converting.

 

How long does it take?

 

Next day if a week day

 

Is there any danger they will class this as a gift - the sender and recipient being different - and so tax it at 6%?

 

I switched from Xoom after I started having problems with transfers a few years ago. I've been using Remitly ever since and always had a good experience. Took a little while to get to the point where I can do transfers without a verification process though. But it's seamless now ever since. Rate is usually better than Xoom. There's a fee for immediate transfer. It's free if you don't mind waiting a few business days.

 

I have compared the amount received in pesos for a certain amount of currency (GBP in my case) - Transferwise beats everyone I checked (and I checked at the same time).

Remitly in my experience was hopeless, totally hopeless. They asked what I wanted the money for and I told them for food and eating out. They then asked for receipts for those purchases BEFORE I HAD RECEIVED THE MONEY!

I ended up with about 25 e-mail exchanges trying to get sense out of them. Perhaps they have now improved their service but their rate is low - I have found Transferwise to be the best rate and the most efficient service. With recipients already listed on my account it takes about 3 minutes to make a remittance and within a day (if a weekday) to receive.

 

Furthermore, Transferwise has a borderless account feature that everyone gets. They essentially allow you to use their bank accounts as yours. This way you can do "in country" bank to bank transfers in many different countries.