Banking

For the US, you just choose your USA address. It doesn’t matter to my CC issuers that I am usually overseas. I already recently renewed both of them with my son’s USA address where they sent the new cards. He took pics of the cards front and back where I got the new expiration dates and security CCV numbers. Then I called the “800” numbers listed using my USA magicjack phone number (also good to have!) to renew the cards and from there could resume online purchases and bill payments and also update PayPal, western union and eBay plus other monthly cc deductions such as life insurance. So that makes me good until 2024 and 2025 when I can do the same thing again, apparently.

Have to renew a debit card next year with same credit union that issued one of the credit cards and I anticipate no problems; my son just sends me the cards by DHL. If there were long term delays in getting new debit ATM cards, another option would to send myself cash to western union office Phils from my US checking account (or ang credit card but that is more expensive!) where my SSA and pensions are deposited every month from my checking account (temporary process until card arrives) for a $5.00 transaction fee...Western union is great that way. I tried a trial run for that; they give you a MTCN and it works fine.

PayPal is also excellent and you can link it to home country credit and debit cards, savings and checking accounts. I recently used that to pay a Manila company for an item; the guy would not accept US credit cards but he did have a PayPal account. I could have used western union for that too I guess but either way the fee is about the same and much lower than the customary $50 bank transfer fee with big currency exchange loss when they convert dollars to pesos from the US. I used PayPal in that case because of the buyers protection plan it has against scams and defective merchandise (something they don’t have here).

In the rare case that you receive a personal check in the USA, such as a check for earnest money on a house you are selling there, I had my son take a picture of the check and he emailed the jpeg image to me. I printed it out here in the Phils and made an online check deposit (where you take a picture of that picture) to my US credit union. It worked fine.


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I agree and certainly would not advise anyone to put all their eggs in one basket (case country).

This came up in another thread recently when the consensus seem to be to keep some cash in your home country - but this can be done without the need for any credit or banking cards from that country. Transferwise is often cited here as a very good method to remit money and I entirely agree.

But people also need to think of issues such as future exchange rates, the quality of companies (many worldwide are predicted to go bankrupt within months), the risks of stock markets, the security of property values (an interesting one as perhaps many Western folk will head East after reading how each region dealt with Covid-19 or perhaps those living East will want to go back West to feel more free).

But in life it is all about risks and how we balance them.

 

The exchange rate PayPal offers is truly dreadful. I used it once for a foreign currency payment. Because it was a relatively small amount I didn't pay attention to the exchange rate they were offering. I noticed it later and it was shocking, like almost 10% worse than that I would have got with my bank. They must make a fortune from foreign exchange payments.

PayPal is a very useful tool for same currency payments, but I would only use them for foreign currency payments if I had no alternative.

 

Thanks for the information on PayPal. You can link your debit or credit card to PayPal rather than pay from your PayPal balance and and use the credit/debit card exchange rates, however good or bad they are (usually not bad). Now I suspect if transferring on PayPal direct from a bank account, it might result in the high exchange rates you mention because PayPal would have to handle the peso conversion. They usually go through some other agency to convert and the rates are terrible. Of course you can also use your credit card directly but small businesses here may not accept them due to the service charges they must pay to the card companies. Western union in my many years experience has always had good exchange rates; service charges for them are $5.00 when you transfer from ready cash sources like debit card or checking account and higher (and takes longer) when transferring from a credit card.


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