°µÍø½ûÇø

Agree, check exchange rates, found very large amounts like when we purchased the house here that the brokers offered much better deals. I have generally used my main bank (Westpac) to transfer over the years and they only charge me AU 5 bucks and their exchange rate is competitive and live, like 5 seconds to accept or update again.

Westpac to my BDO account here takes up to 2 business days, all done on the laptop.

Funny, if I sent say UA 5k there was no charge from BDO, every thing over AU 10k they would charge us P 200 until I told the manager a couple of years ago if they charge me again we will move banks as they kept insisting it was an intermediary and not their charge, I told her bank to bank there is no one in between... no more deductions from BDO.

I am sure it's different for many people depending on your situation.

Cheers, Steve.

There are some discrepancies in the amount of time it takes for transfers from the same transfer companies used by °µÍø½ûÇøs.

These are the reasons:

(1) Your bank may take it's time to send the transfer while other banks will do it simultaneously.

(2) Your Philippine bank will take it's time crediting the payment to your account or do it simultaneously.

(A) My bank (CitiBank USA) will send the transfer simultaneously to Wise through ACH (Automated Clearing House)

(B) Wise will simultaneously send the money to BDO.

(C) BDO will simultaneously credit my account.

Breakdown of my last transfer:

3:15 I authorized Wise to do the transfer.

3:16 Wise received the money.

3:19 Wise paid out the money

When I checked 20 minutes later the funds were credited to my account when I checked, it could have been sooner if I had checked.

So Wise is doing their part efficiently along with CitiBank & BDO. Any delays are caused by the issuing bank and receiving bank.

Yep agree Bob but for bank transfers 1 or 2 days doesn't bother me as I have plenty of access to funds here and forward thinking but what peeves me if I send money, large amounts to a different bank the delays.

Example, I deposited P300k from Oz to the R/E agents trust account and was cleared in 1 day, some months later I sent them around P5.7m for the balance and it took 10 days to clear. (sitting on the money) that was the broker or the bank, who knows.

Purchased a new car a few years ago my bank to the dealers bank and took 8 days.

The laugh with those transfers was that both the R/E agents and the car company asked for an extra 2 or 300 pesos as their bank charged them to deposit the funds, told them both to change banks as I am not paying their greed.

Our BDO tried the same thing and after a few times as mentioned I confronted the manageress and no drama since.

Cheers, Steve.

@Ivan Cristante I agree with the high cost of exchange rates.  In my previous comment, I'll try WISE the next transfer.

@LoneWolfNY thanks for the info on Charles Schwab, although I don't use ATM much in Philippines.  Do you know it return ATM fees for use in other countries?

@Moon Dog Just curious, you sent the entire amount at once?  In US, transactions over 10K is red-flagged.  Hell, I was already flagged by US Boder Patrols returning to US the past 3 entries.  Not pleasant. 

bigpearl . . . . I deposited P300k from Oz to the R/E agents trust account and was cleared in 1 day, some months later I sent them around P5.7m for the balance and it took 10 days to clear. (sitting on the money) that was the broker or the bank, who knows.

**

I don't how it operates outside the states but US banks at the end of the business day can have a shortage or surplus of cash. The banks with a surplus will loan overnight the banks with a shortage so they can maintain their reserve requirement. The interest rate may be small but when talking millions of dollars the bean counters are happy.

OO Bob and us plebians have no control nor ever will. Obviously the same in Oz for large sums.

Cheers, Steve.

In my post above I listed fees & exchange rates.

I have learned that bank to bank transfers directly does not yield a good exchange rate,

But when I use WU & Zoom I get a better rate but only for bank to bank, (WF to BDO) if picking up in person the exchange rate is Lower

@ppjhm the best I found after many hours of searching is Wise ..formally TransferWise.  Cheap transfers...good exchange rate and fairly quick.  I transfer money from my UK bank account to my wife's account here in Mindanao.

I never had a problem and I've used them for a number of years

You'll find some who offer "free" transfers but their exchange rate is not so good.

@Whitehall1212 I do have wise and also a wise debit card that works well here but all I have done with them is ti transfer small amounts to "test" the system. All works well. However, I have become somewhat addicted to remitly when it comes to bank transfers. These are smaller amounts such as power bills from my us bank to Philippine banks accounts like PNB and BDO for power bills from NORECO II and PROSIELCO and also to MAYA to make online utility internet and other utility bill payments. I guess I could use wise to make those same transfers. I suspect that wise is great for the big transfers like car and house but I have only needed to do that twice. Is there a big advantage in choosing wise over remity?

@duonguhm I did 3 bank to bank transfers exceeding 10K, one to but a new SUV and 2 to pay for a house/lot. I knew it could get flagged but I had and still have documentation to prove the transfers were for a legitimate purpose. After that we returned to the US 2 times, no issues. Other than that we keep our money in US banks and only transfer what we need here, well below 10K. Our previous experiences with Philippine banks was not too good; if accounts are not accessed for 6 months or so, they begin liberating you of your balance (inactivity fees), they ask what you will do with the money for any large withdrawals and other issues like only $10K deposit insurance.

I do have wise and also a wise debit card that works well here

-@danfinn

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Dan . . . . I've been thinking about a Wise Debit Card but not seriously. Maybe you can inform us as the advantage of using a Wise Debit Card then maybe I'll apply.

I did it to have a backup debit card to fill in the gap between card expiration and the time my son gets a new card sent to me. With wise I can load the card directly from my US bank account at a good rate. I also have a coinbase debit card as a 3rd alternate which was interesting before the crypto crash; I didn't have a lot if BTC & am not sure if coinbase will be around in the future but it did allow conversion of BTC to pesos when withdrawing from any international VISA ATM in the Phils. It seemed like a good option last year lol. I just wanted to have alternative ATM cards using the same bank as a source of funds.

danfinn said . . . . I did it to have a backup debit card to fill in the gap between card expiration and the time my son gets a new card sent to me. With wise I can load the card directly from my US bank account at a good rate.

****

Thanks Dan,

I imagine the rate for the transfer to your wise debit card or transfer to your Philippine bank account are the same?

For me I don't see any advantage, but thanks for the info.

Side Note:

I received two updated credit cards today via FedEX for $$$. Wouldn't you guess it, I received an email from B of A saying an updated credit is on the way.

Welcome Ivan, This is a topic well visited over and again, we all have to do our own research and work out the best exchange rate and fees, posted on this as others have many times. My bank gives me 5 or 10 seconds to lock in exchange rates or the refresh/start again, know the market rates by the minute to find the best deal.

Cheers, Steve.

@Enzyte Bob I transfer $US to wise from my US CU for a small fee I as I recall. I then access an ATM and withdraw pesos just as I would from the $US dollar bank/CU debit card. Actually the rate is of secondary importance to me; having an alternative card is more important. Maybe I should reduce ATM usage here; with remitly I can send money from my bank to myself and pick it up at any lhhullier, cebuano, LBC and many more, even maya and gcash, in seconds without doing several 10K peso transactions. If I got into that habit, no need for a debit card except as a convenience in certain situations.

@Enzyte Bob I transfer $US to wise from my US CU for a small fee I as I recall. I then access an ATM and withdraw pesos just as I would from the $US dollar bank/CU debit card. Actually the rate is of secondary importance to me; having an alternative card is more important. Maybe I should reduce ATM usage here; with remitly I can send money from my bank to myself and pick it up at any lhhullier, cebuano, LBC and many more, even maya and gcash, in seconds without doing several 10K peso transactions. If I got into that habit, no need for a debit card except as a convenience in certain situations.
-@danfinn

For me Dan it doesn't make sense to do a transfer from my US bank account onto a Wise debit card to make purchases. I transfer money using Wise directly into BDO and use the BDO debit card.

I'm thinking you don't have a Philippine bank account yet.

@Moon Dog  Hi, have used a number of these transfer services over the years and they all charge fees or reduced exchange rates or both.  Heard about someone transferring a larger amount to PI to buy a car and then your situation with the house.  I would like to be able to transfer money over there just like we do when we visit.  We carry cash over and then deposit in my wife's account, getting the best rate and of course no transfer fee.  Simply put, how can I transfer dollars to a PI bank and then convert it to Pesos?  I know we need to upgrade from the local province bank that my wife currently has to BDO or BPI and get a dollar account.  Thanks for the advice, because we bought land there and are needing to put a lot of money into it and don't want to pay any middle men if we can avoid it.

@Shorty Glover I have made transfers to the Metro bank account of Tacloban Toyota to buy a new vehicle and to my brother in law's BDO account to pay for building projects. I used Fidelity for both transfers. I didn't want to take the money out of my IRA or 401K because that money is untaxed. My fidelity account is linked to my Wells Fargo bank account I so transferred the money from WF to Fidelity and when it settled I wired $33K from Fidelity to Tacloban Toyota's Metro bank account to pay for the Fortuner.

I later transferred $30K to Fidelity from WF and wired it to my brother in law's BDO account to pay for projects using Fidelity. We withdrew P1.4 million from his account after it cleared. Fidelity transferred US dollars and the banks converted the funds to pesos automatically. I don't believe there was a charge for exchanging the money and Fidelity did not charge any fees for the wire transfers. I don't remember the exchange rate for the BDO transfer but after doing the math I saw that Metro bank gave us a good exchange rate.

I just used what I had available and did not create any new accounts and I did both transfers over the phone and from the Philippines. Fidelity will do wire transfers over the phone and they have a collect number for overseas calls. I could have made the transfers directly from Wells Fargo but I would have to visit a branch and they charge a hefty fee for the service.

How to transfer money from IMTF?

@Enzyte Bob This is exactly what I do. Wise is my middleman from the US to the Philippines.

@danfinn I use Wise to transfer what I need. A large amount if needed. Then I transfer to my wife's BDO account. I do not, and will not, have a US bank directly connected to a bank in the Philippines.

@duonguhm I use CS only to withdraw money and have cash. It has been proven that they will return my ATM fees. I pay with cash where I can and ask for a receipt. I do NOT use Charles Shwabb's card for any transaction. If I have to, I use WISE.

I'm thinking you don't have a Philippine bank account yet.
-@Enzyte Bob

Right. We do not have one and probably never will. We used to, maybe 15 years ago, but we were in the US. Not using the account while we were gone, they started legally stealing money from the balance as "service charges" for inactivity. They never mentioned this of course when opening the account. This made us, my wife a Filipina, both distrustful of their business relationship to us which is basically to legally screw people out if as much as they can.  If the account becomes inactive for too long, dormant by the bank's definition, then you lose the whole thing. We only lost half. Their deposit insurance even for checking is not enough because we don't always burn through our balance to below 500k php. Finally, we see no advantage to their "dollar" accounts with waiting periods for clearance etc. when we can simply use remitly to send money to pakawan, lhhullier, lbc or (for usual spending) withdraw from an ATM. We pay most bills online using MAYA or GCASH which we load directly from our US bank account using remitly or wise. Banks here are useful to us only insofar as their ATM machines are helpful.  We also are not charged 250php per 10000 php withdrawal.

danfinn said . . . maybe 15 years ago, but we were in the US. Not using the account while we were gone, they started legally stealing money from the balance as "service charges" for inactivity. They never mentioned this of course when opening the account.

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This is a common occurrence even in the states. Years ago I had a no fee account but a $50 minimum. The account was inactive and somehow the balance fell below $50. Then the bank started charging me $5 a month debited from this account unknown to me.

Then sometime later their last debit made the account negative and they sent me a letter demanding that I pay an overdraft fee.

Everyone should be aware of inactive accounts to prevent loss of funds, also if you have a charge card that has been inactive for a year, you may get a letter saying the card was cancelled.