Just discovered this Mastercard today and it seems pretty good! No Load fees except if you load by credit card (debit card loads are free) You can load by credit card, debit card, standing order, internet banking Excellent exchange rates No Foreign Exchange Fees No Commission No monthly or annual charges No transaction fees (great but only if you can use it in Philippine outlets) Can move money (for free) between other Kalixa cardholders It does cost $6.95p to buy the card though and it costs £2.25p for overseas cash withdrawals (which is on top of the typical 200 Peso charged by Philippines banks) and there is a limit of £300 withdrawal per day, which is a little under 20,000 PHP at current exchange rates. Although Philippine banks generally charge 200 Pesos on withdrawals using overseas cards, some charge just 150 Pesos. HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank and City Bank are probably still free of ATM withdrawal charges. I think China Bank charge 150 Pesos for ATM withdrawal but their withdrawal limit (20,000 Pesos) is higher than the Philippine Banks (generally 10,000 Pesos per transaction) Its exchange rates appear to be a little better than World Remit and if you can use the card directly for purchases in the Philippines you will be quids in. If you have to make cash withdrawals in the Philippines it probably just beats World Remit (even with the high ATM withdrawal fees at Philippines Banks) except when World Remit have their 50% fees offer. If you want to use the Kalixa card in other countries there is still a £2.25p cash withdrawal fee but no fee for other transactions. In the UK, the cash withdrawal fee is £1.75p but other transactions are free. So, if you use the card abroad and return the UK with cash on the card you can use it for purchases with effectively no charge. Do bear in mind though, that the S75 protection given to UK credit card purchases does not extend to prepaid credit cards, such as the Kalixa.
Thanks Howerd, that is very useful, looks like a good service. Having done some rough calculations you might be right, there is a £14.50 difference between WorldRemit and Kalixa on sending 36204 peso (about £500) fees would be about £4.97 per ATM withdrawal and at China Bank limits and charges that would work out less. Next time I am there I will test HSBC and the likes for ATM charges, only problem there is that you can only really get their ATM's in Makati, very hard to find elsewhere, China Bank has a bit more presence in the other cities in the Metropolis.
Looks good to me Howerd. After some rough calculations this appears to be better than my Caxton FX card, and I cannot see any hidden traps with this one.
That's not my point, it is obviously multiple transactions, that's why I said "fees would be about £4.97 per ATM withdrawal and at China Bank limits and charges that would work out less." You could do it in 2 transactions via China Bank and it would be about 70p cheaper than £4.97 per transaction. Via most other ATM's it would be 4 transactions and more expensive than WorldRemit. Saying that I would not use such a card for cash withdrawals over there anyway, but I would use it for purchases in order to get the great exchange rate.
There are some pretty terrible reviews floating about the net about them though, might just be a disgruntled minority but at least one is quite disturbing where a large sum of money appears to have vanished from the account.
My best card for overseas ATM withdrawals is my zero monthly fee - (no longer issued to new customers) Citibank UK card used at an international Citibank ATM. That costs about 1%, possibly slightly less as it uses the Citibank internal rate. It used to be an even better card till they imposed a 2% charge for using non-Citibank ATMs a few years ago. Worth remembering that a stack of clean GBP notes will be exchanged into PHP for about 2% commission at a Western Union money changer.
I usually get better than 2% on UK notes and it does not have to be a WU money changer, usually closer to 1% at most local money changers near us.
Sorry, I should have looked at the reviews. I am sure I would have done if I was going to get the card so it was remiss of me not do so and then recommend to others. Then again, I think a lot of these providers get bad reviews often because of 'security reasons', when all they are trying to do is protect your money. It is worrying though if funds do actually disappear! I think I may get one of these cards for on-line purchases of under £100 (where S.75 protection offered for credit card purchases is not available anyway). I am always worried about the apparent lack of security on sites, such as Amazon - no second factor authentication, no name check, no address check, no CVV check and no 3-D secure either. If someone uses a stolen credit card on credit card on Amazon they can have a field day. At this moment I add a credit card to on-line sites, make my purchases and then (if I remember) delete the card from the website. If I used this card, deleting it from the website would not really be necessary as I no funds would remain on the card after the purchase was made.
Very important to read and understand the small print for any credit / debit / cash card, especially from the International viewpoint. I have only had one issue using my Caxton FX Global traveller card. I booked a hotel in Cebu online via the hotels own website paying the bill in USD, but for some reason the card was charged in GBP via RBS worldpay and I had a £1.50 domestic payment charge slapped onto the bill by Caxton as well as a hefty USD to GBP exchange percentage by RBS. At no time did I accept or authorise my booking being charged in GBP. This was obviously not Caxton's fault, however their rules state that a charge is made for domestic (GBP) payments using the Global card. Lloyds International make a fixed charge on top of the FX rate for use of their GBP denominated card overseas, that caught me out when I made a small online purchase in EUR from Amazon.de. Caxton seems good, I have had their card for a few years, I just regard the 2.75% FX mark-up as being avoidable, especially when there are the local bank ATM charges which have been imposed in many Asian countries over the past few years.
