There is a new kid on the block when it comes to transferring money overseas and they send money to the Philippines. Azimo.. Though it is unlikely as these guys are new, has anyones used them yet? When I check them out with the FSA, they are listed as "Azimo Limited, Ping Mobile Service Limited". So has anyone used Azumo or Ping mobile??? I am planning on sending over a grand to my wife in a few weeks so am checking for the cheapest option. Now, Azimo only allow up to £900 for transfers without a whole hoop of security checks at both ends so I might just send the visa money through these guys and her allowance via other means. A £5 charge though for £900 transferred to the Philippines looks tempting though Below is their press release..
I would be very reluctant to try out a new service like this with a large amount of money Sean no matter how cheap they claim to be. Would also be concerned that they they are very close to the wire in treading on what is almost certainly a Honda trademark "Asimo" the robot. World Remit are only a little bit more expensive with a lot more peace of mind. Paypal would cost about 927 + 4.50 fee at the UK end, interestingly World Remit would only cost £920 for a transfer UK bank account to Philippine bank account.
Kuya, I would agree with the thinking of oss. I have been pretty conservative over the years with this issue and have used i-Remit for over 10 years and World Remit for nearly a year. Both are reliable and 'do what it says on the tin' There's a whole lot of organisations and methods of xfering money. For me I look for safety and reliability of service. Also the total costs involved. Means exchange rates and charges.Both of which need careful scutiny. No use having low low charges with highly unfavourable ER's I've even used my Caxton card for smaller amounts up to £250 and this has worked very well also.
Yeah Peter, for the difference of about 10 quid between Azimo and WorldRemit I would stick to WorldRemit, over the last 6 months I have found them very reliable for quick transfers and fairly large amounts. The only thing with World Remit is to double double double check that all your selections and settings were exactly spot on what you wanted before you press the pay button as their web interface is very simplistic it just does what you ask rather than giving you nice detailed summaries before you commit and it's not possible to change things even if you phone them up say in case you selected the wrong Payout company, which I did once.
Hi, There is always a good rule to follow your steps. But I would like to encourage you to use Azimo. As one of founders of Azimo, and guy who is responsible for whole technical side of the project, I am happy to answers any of questions. I understand that you might be not much enthusiast about using or recommending Azimo, but have you noticed that Paypal is regulated in Luxemburg and Azimo is regulated by British FSA, and you can always phone the regulator and ask all necessary questions, or contact us directly on facebook. Apart of that we had to comply with PCI rules, E-trust regulation, and secured with Norton Highest Tier certificates. But especially for british-filipino.com we created special voucher valid by end of september 2012, here you can send money to Philippines and using discount code british-filipino, which will give fixed fee or 3 GBP for any amount sent. And regards similarity to ASIMO, I agree it sounds similar, but it wasn't any close idea to be connected with honda's great robot our idea was simpler "Azimo" means "something lent", or "assistance" in Swahili and in Arabic means "The Greatest" or "He who will be great". Regards the first name of Ping Mobile Service, it is quite funny story, that was our original idea for the business name, but literally 3 days before us filling necessary trade mark documentation PingIt form barclays came up, and we made decision to change the name We really believe that by reducing cost of money transfer, we can help making world a little better place, so we optimised money sending process to minimum reducing all necessary costs, and thats why internet was the best place to do that! Thank you!
Hi Marek, to British Filipino. It's just that your service is new, the price is very attractive but many of us have got long term commitments to meet and we are naturally reluctant to take a big chance with something very new. I think the level of fee's you are offering are absolutely great but I will testing it out carefully much the same as I did with WorldRemit the other year, good exchange rates and low transfer fees will be a godsend to me but it's all about taking little steps Thank you very much for the special discount I will avail myself of that later in the month, with the way the GBP-PHP cross has gone over the last few years, every penny now counts so rest assured I am sure we will be trying out your service, Kuya on the other hand has a very important transfer to make sometime this week so I think my advice to him still stands.
Hi, I understand how important transfers are important In fact we noticed today couple of transfers using the special voucher code from here, so very positive feedback, and if the trust factor is the key, you can always ask for me via azimo help line and I will always call you back (of course not working as call centre so give me some reasonable time to follow up so if something is important I can make sure that it goes the fastest way. Marek
I am sorry, I cannot see any savings, if there are I must blink at the wrong time and miss the relevant bit............ Actually for us even WU is cheaper than what is shown on that website.
I am surprised, that you mentioned WU :O Just made check, WU for today gives "Estimated exchange rate 1 United Kingdom Pound = 64,8958867 Philippine Peso " We give Exchange rate of 67.59447. So 10000 PHP cost you 152.94 GBP (if you use our code is only 149.94 GBP) With Western Union you will have to pay £154,09 so when you need to send bit more savings are even higher! I do also encourage to use the code as when you do send 100000 PHP it cost only 1482.41 GBP where western union will charge you £ 1540,93, and please also note that WU don't allow sending more than 2500 GBP online. Marek
Interesting Dom, I had not previously checked the more delayed WU service direct to a bank account, much cheaper than WU's usual daylight robbery I've not signed up yet Marek so I don't know what gets added on at the end, if anything, but compared to the some other services you do seem quite cheap, I will reserve further comment until I get a chance to sign up and try the service, I hate Western Union with a vengeance simply because of years of being forced to use them for emergencies and the hideous charges they impose for cash pickup transfers, WorldRemit are far better in that regard.
It is a point for WU, which probably is a strongest one, and we don't try compete much on that level (quick cash pickup), during design we where more inspired of low cost airlines like easyjet, wizzair. We figured out actual costs involved, and using technology reduce cost of all expensive parts of the process. We are proud to be cheapest solution so far and definitely covering biggest part of the world. It is also worth notice that we are working with Act!on and Operation Smile where we gives 10% of our profit to them, and gives people option to voluntary donation. We also noticed, that some small companies/freelancers in other countries started using as payment services for their goods, as we give them money in 24 h and they don't have any extra costs or contract to be singed up.
I miss Xoom too, it was flexible but it was still expensive, WorldRemit probably beat them and these new guys probably beat them too.
Marek, you and I share several of the same job title's although you are a much younger man than I Interestingly we are currently outsourcing a large ERP redevelopment to a fast growing Polish company, although saying that our project is a pretty slow moving one, much to my regret (not in any way the fault of the Poles they are just following orders). Very interesting to see this service arrive I will look into it, give you a chance and if it works for me I will recommend it but for various reasons I can't try to use your services until the middle of the month.
Ouch, Facebook, just where wondering how that quickly you figured out that I am younger So great to meet another miracle maker Well I can only also suggest pay them with Azimo as we are proven cheapest solution to pay to Poland (in fact I were loosing around 1000 GBP a month by paying through Barclays Swift) same birtish-filipino code apply. I had dealt with ATG as contractor for one of UK telecoms and know how hard is to get the right solutions in place, at end of the day any ERP decide of company shape, and you cannot make it bad Generally working on any outsourcing the key is to make sure developers understands/likes business process, I noticed that some times it makes great difference when developers can feel, touch or see the actual process they developing. I remember when where developing an solution for one of freight forwarder and me and whole team literally spend one day as "regular" (up to level when health and safety allow) workers helping with container loading/unloading shipping, or other day literally spend day picking and packing at the warehouse. Obviously make sure there will be some good food, party and relaxing time afterward, works great as team building!
I checked, you will still save money converting GBP -> USD , USD->PHP with azimo The trick is easy, we just charge less for your currency exchange The only cheaper way you can do that is tho find someone needs GBP with some PHP and adjust your own exchange rate, but that of course wouldn't be scalable
Okay.. A few hours ago whilst talking with my wife over the internet, I sent her a small amount of money (4,000 pesos) using Azimo. Signing in was pretty easy, I did so through Facebook. Though the app then asked who should know I had used this service I amended the permission to "just me", I don't need my Facebook friends knowing I have just sent money to my wife or anyone else for that matter, it is not their business! I filled in the details to match my wife's ID (still in her maiden name) and processed the payment via my debit card. The interesting part was that I had to choose the location for the payout. Now this can have good and bad ramifications. Good, I choose where it gets collected and that can be more secure. The bad, if my wife had plans to go to the other side of town then she might have to alter her plans to collect the cash. The transfer rate came in at 65.98 pesos to £1.00. Currently the official rate is 66.66 pesos to £1.00 for traders, so overall it is not a bad deal. There was a charge of £5.00 and had I been inclined the possibility to donate to a charity. My wife has yet to collect so I am not sure how long it takes to pick up at the other end, but the initial transfer was pretty smooth. To sum it all up.. The Good: Very easy to set up and sign in. Azimo has an iPhone and an Android app to make transfers from (I shall test this another time). Smooth transaction. You choose the desired collection point. Good rates and a £5 charge is very reasonable. The Bad: There was no way to specify the amount in pesos and just pay the calculated amount (as World Remit lets you do) - unless I missed it. After figuring out which place to pick up the server had kicked me out and I had to do the transaction again (though I was dithering on that). Thanks to Marek for taking the time out to speak with our community. If this service turns out as god as Xoom used to be before they went all US centric, our community could be repeat customers of yours.
No Marek, just Googled you mate, I don't use Facebook (too old) I found your linkedin profile pretty quick, you publish your picture ergo you're a young bloke and I am an ancient monolith We are both Software Architect's, I have had many roles over 24 years in software and many more in other realms and professions Had my own software business for 14 years up till 2009 but am now a wage slave again sadly Could not agree more on your points regarding dev's getting to understand the business processes, sadly the position of authority that I should be in I am not in and as a result my experience is going to waste and I hate that. We have an existing vertical market ERP system that is market leader in its field but is based on ancient (not even legacy) technology and while it is great it desperately needs re-engineered, the project is sadly going to to fail as we are far too small a company, so at some point I will be back in the freelance market. Cheers sir! Jim
We won't be us centric, for sure, as we al based in UK, however we are planning to open to new markets. Thank you for review of the site, regards paying amount in pesos, you can always do that by changing box on the right and that will change your amount in GBP, just please note that sometimes it might add or subtract 1p from pounds amount as calculations from pesos are contend it millions and rounding up sometimes gives funny results (like 499.99 GBP instead of 500 GBP). Regards pickup location, your session timed out thats why you have to do that again, but I agree with you this process isn't most efficient one, and can only say that we are currently working on that to make it easier to use.
Ahh, thanks. Next time I will be more observant. I figured it timed me out, my bank does it all the time.. The problem was I was looking at maps to locate the best collection point but on my second try I am sure this won't be an issue and for some people this would not be an issue at all (if they know the areas well).
