Remittance/Money Transfer to the Philippines

Two days before my return flight, I opened a savings account, at BDO Dumaguete with a Japanese resident ID and my passport and was told I can only add to my savings through remittance because I have no Philippine ID. I then went to their Tokyo office called BDO Remit Japan to register, filling out the part for beneficiaries and told them about sending primarily to my Dumaguete account. I then hit their online "send to any BDO account" when I give money to my family. Thanks for the heads up on rereading their terms of service.

 

Maybe the people using money changers to trade their home currency for peso should give some thought to why they are getting a favourable exchange rate (if that is truly the case, I have my doubts).
As in all business ventures, profit in the money changer profession hinges on supply and demand. If they give a really good rate, one wonders where the demand for those dollars originates. Surely they are not selling your dollars to the banks. It doesn't require all that much genius to figure it out.

Just in case people are interested, I have been using Transferwise ever since I came here, I fund them from my euro account at my European bank without a hassle in 2 minutes (free transfer), they (Transferwise) charge me a 1% fee and give me the "mid-rate" to exchange to peso (so no foreign exchange loss for me), and deposit the resulting peso amount in my Philippines peso account usually within 2 hours (but never later than next business day).

 

I had terrible experiences with Remitly; I would rather send my money by carrier pigeon than go through the huge hassle I had with them. And their rate is very poor. For UK to Phil, best in my experience (and I have sent a lot) is Kabayan Remit, then BCRemit, then Transferwise. XE was lower rate than all of these and VERY slow.

 

Whats about WorldRemit? I use them quite often and never had any issues and they are really fast. Quite fair exchange rates (near to XE rates) and lower taxes. Currently they seems to have a promo where when you send more than CHF 125.- then you will get an additional CHF 25.- voucher (Dunno how it looks in other currency.)

 

Pay higher fee, and worse exchange rate? No thanks !

 

With what are you transferring money?

Does it work also with cash pickup at Cebuana Lhuillier?

 

I use a company called Transferwise, as may be obvious from the picture I included.
It is a company from Estonia, one of their major investors is Sir Richard Branson, a British billionaire who made his fortune with an airline company called Virgin Atlantic.
Transfering money through Transferwise only works if the recipient has a bank account in the destination country.
So no cash pickup.
Paying into Transferwise, preferably through electronic banking, is free. Using a card to pay them, whether a debit or creditcard, incurs additional costs for most countries/currencies.

 

Did you counted in the transfer cost from your bank account to the Transferwise bank account? Not every country have free money transfer to another bank account outside of the country. Switzerland is a terrible example. Lots of transfer cost. When I have to pay CHF 35.- to transfer money from my bank account to the Transferwise account then Worldremit would be cheaper for me.

There is a project called Revolut. Did someone checked that one?

 

There is no transfer cost to pay from my (or your) bank account to Transferwise.
It is not an international transfer, Transferwise has local bank accounts in most European countries, also in la Suisse/der Schweiz/Svizzera/Switzerland.
Swiss Francs (CHF) | TransferWise Support & FAQ - International Money Transfer

 

Transferwise is good but they charge a high fee for sending GBP to Philippine pesos. I compared them with KabayanRemit and they are not as good - but Kabayan are UK based and I am not sure you can use them in the rest of Europe. However, I rate Transferwise highly for efficiency.