Finance & Legal Wise

I don't see why WISE, a very professional and efficient bank with various currency accounts allowed, would want to get involved with anything to do with the Philippines - where inefficiency is the weak foundation on which everything is built. FFS, many so-called 'Philippine businesses' are still operating via FB and obscure email accounts! And they don't even reply to the queries their crap systems receive.

I can only postulate that the Ph government has forced them (if this story is correct and not a scam - which it seems not to be) and therefore may force every remittance company to be the same. It seems WISE would operate the sending but this new Philippine arm would operate the receiving??? Or would the Philippine side operate both? Sounds like a recipe for disaster unless it is Philippine in name only.

I assume it is easy for the government to tell a business that if they want to remit here they have to put control into the VERY SAFE NON-CORRUPT EFFICIENT hands of Filipinos (good luck with that one!). If they refuse then they lose that part of their business.

When I last remitted here, it was a maximum of 500,000 per transaction or else the bank had to hold it up whist enquiries were made (this could be very rigorous: e.g "What's it for?" > "Savings" > "Ok"). But that amount could then be sent to one bank account. Now they state 500,000 per day can be remitted but only 400,000 per month per bank account - so that requires 38 bank accounts (if anyone is sending the max, a total of 15 million pesos per month and, if so, then please be my BFF).

Two other sort-of-related issues:

1. Our banks we use to transfer money to WISE, etc., are not going to allow 500,000 pesos (equivalent in your currency) out per day for a month! They OWN the money (even though it is ours!) and don't want us spending it. There is even a chance they will freeze our accounts. I was wary when sending even 1 million over a period of a month using two remittance companies and 4 receiving bank accounts. Endless stops of the transfers (by my bank), enquiries and other shite (all supposedly in my interest).
2. There is a Donors Tax in the Philippines (aka 'Gift Tax') for any amount given to any person (related or not) over the sum of 250,000 pesos per calendar year. The tax on the excess is 6%. Checking the internet you will find various versions of this tax over the years but I think this is the most recent. That tax has to be paid by the DONOR, not the recipient - HTF are they going to get tax from someone living abroad, unless they get the donor's tax authorities involved. So sending large amounts to the country might arouse the very-efficient BIR to look into it. The maximum permitted 15 m per month would need to be sent to 60 different people. I don't know about you but I have only two friends and one now lives in Scotland. There is a thread here discussing this Tax and how to prove the money is intended for the use of the sender himself - perhaps having to split restaurant bills to show what he ate and what his wife (the recipient from the donor) ate!

That, of course, is based on sending 15m per month (as I will be doing as soon as my foreign lottery hits the jackpot!). But for normal people, sending about 100,000 or so per month should create none of the above issues - only the worry if the money gets into the correct bank account after passing through a Filipino system.

I just wish that cryptocurrencies would become stable and reliable but it seems not. And if they ever do, governments will legislate them to ensure they become as controlled as banks are now. In fact, governments are working towards making societies cashless so they can record every transaction (but assume not buying a penny chew) and further control their citizens.

 

What is going on ?

 

Short answer is we don't know yet...

IF these changes are being forced on Wise Australia by the Philippine government them Wise Australia could be the first cab off the rank

 

Was going to put some links to the banking controls put in place world wide on other banks/government's by the US. However I'll assume most here are aware of this development so let's keep this on topic. We have the 2 following situations, maybe more to follow?

Firstly Wise or rather the transfers of funds abroad.
IMO Notmyrealname pretty much summed it up!

Then we have...

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2022/10/14/2216666/watch-how-register-sim-card-philippines

We now have a more pro USA government generally in the Philippines.

 

I also got that email and I believe it has to do with what they have on file as your place of residence. If thats in the Philippines, they will move you to over to Wise Pilipinas.

I think they simply want to enter the local market. e-money like gcash is very popular here, so they might as well want to secure their share of that. For that, a local subsidiary is a natural first step, if not even required by law.

 

As I understood it, the 400k refers to what you can receive in your Wise account in a month.

 

Well that would be the best outcome, especially as Wise is my preferred transfer of funds. Have back ups but even so.

 

Wise up date.

Just went to send funds over, only £1000. First transfer since here from the UK. However had certain proof of income type questions plus download request of legal document proof of funds.
All completed and monies went through or rather will do by Tuesday as it's Friday banks closing etc.

BTW wife received the Wise Philippines notice mentioned here previously. So I'm guessing it's Wise setting up a more permanent base here.

 

Is anyone else having issues with sending via the Wise app? Not been available for 10 days now. Keep getting message 'servers not available at the moment. Please try again later'. Have sent them a message, but no response.

 

I transferred GBP1000 last Friday with Wise. Arrived in BPI 3 hrs later. No problems.