As far as I can make out defunct for any non-americano Xoom was good but WorldRemit is close possibly better in terms of exchange rate and fee, WU are still as awful as ever, instant but robbing b******s.
As is my wont I occasionally mention Caxton pre paid master cards if you send an activated one to the Phils you can load it as required with sterling from your bank account here on line or by phone and its pretty much instantly available on the card You can see both when and where the card is used any failed attempts
AZIMO had a "Fee Free" promo last week. I did the math and with NatWest paying P65/£1, net of charges, for ATM withdrawals I would have "saved" £5 sending £500 Via AZIMO with their "Fee Free" promo. Not worthwhile for me. "Belt & Braces" 4 me Mate with me spondulicks.!!! Tom
Hi everyone. I'm a new member here. I've got a review of Azimo if anyone's interested. My wife & I used them three times before to send remittances and found them quick & reliable. We sent another remittance this week to my wife's parents. We paid by debit card 10:29, Tuesday 12 Nov 2013. Should be there next day or maybe Thursday. But Thursday morning in the UK, no remittance had arrived and the banks in the Phils were closing. I emailed Azimo at 11.29 on 14 Nov 2013 but had no reply. That afternoon, I used the form on their website to contact them and had no reply. My wife's family really needed the money this week so I was in a rush to ensure the remittance arrived on time. With no response from Azimo, I phoned up today (Friday) at 10.29 (15 Nov 2013) and chased it up again at 12.32 the same day, leaving my contact details. I finally got a call back at 14.25 the same day saying that my remittance was missed. It will arrive Tuesday next week, 7 days later. It seems they don't have a system to check if a payment's not been made. This seems odd given that they send a confirmation email with our previous transfers. I was given a code to have a free transfer next time but I said I'd use someone else from now on instead. As I said, we've used it three times before without problem, but I don't feel confident to use their service again after this week's experience. Your experience might differ.
Welcome here I agree with Dom WorldRemit are pretty good but all of these services have their problems, I have made dozens of transfers using WorldRemit but I have had one where the money took 8 days to go to a bank account and that was long after the floods 2 months ago, I gave them a lot of leeway and only phoned quite late, however I must say I was impressed by their response they were upset at what had happened and made very sure to fix it quickly. All these services have occasional problems it is a shame that you had a problem after only a short number of transactions but it happens. Personally I really like and trust WorldRemit but the only reason I do not use Azimo as well is that they will not accept my card as a payment method, weird but true.
i have used Azimo to send over thousad pounds no problem, had to confirm my id sent photo id of passport now my limit is £4000 over thirty days. used it a number of times and there has never been any problems. will be sending quiet a bit over this year and next to improve house and have no problems with azimo They will only take debit cards not credit though
If I had to send a lot of money I'd use Azimo, but they're not yet as good as World Remit in terms of speed and communication. Whenever we send some money to my inlaws, they get it through World Remit within minutes. I don't think I've ever sent anything through World Remit recently that wasn't collected within a few hours of me sending it!
speaking of which, remittances have soared to 6.4% in the first two months of 2014:- http://www.sunstar.com.ph/breaking-news/2014/04/15/remittances-surge-4b-january-february-338445
Why for large amounts Kuya? Are their rates better? Talking of large amounts, if anyone was to do so, say buying a house or whatever, would you trust one of these companies or would you be inclined to use a bank for extra security despite the extra cost?
We all have our eyes focused on Filipino news/events etc but is remittance a predominantly Filipino trait? Of course other cultures do it but do they do it to the same extent and equivalent amounts as Filipinos do?
I've got a £4,999.00 transfer limit with them just by sending a photo taken from my phone of my passport.
If you're going to buy a property here, then you really should use a bank and preferably an international bank such as Citibank or HSBC - and it is absolutely essential that you retain all the records of the transfer including full details of the remitting account and in respect of the currency exchange. Why? Well if you subsequently sell the property at any time in the future, you will not be allowed to exchange the Pesos back into Sterling without all documentation and both of those banks I mention will assist. I personally wouldn't trust a Filipino bank with such a "mission".
There's a daily limit regarding the amount in Pesos that can be converted into foreign currency and - don't quote me on this - but I think it may be as low as P10,000. That was certainly the limit I could draw at my UK bank's ATM using a Phils debit Card issued by the same bank (HSBC). My UK Debit Card has a much higher daily limit.
10,000 is usually the limit per transaction at most banks in the phils ,that doesnt mean you cant make more than one transaction in a day
Something I never thought of, didn't realise you can make multiple ATM withdrawals there, probably up to your UK daily limit, good information if that's the case.
