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Money transfer

Discussion in 'Money Matters' started by court95, Jan 13, 2018.

  1. court95
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    court95 Active Member


    Ahh for god sake lol well looks like bank transfer then.
  2. court95
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    court95 Active Member

    Well my wife is with bdo.
    Might see if hsbc too, could open an account with them
  3. court95
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    court95 Active Member


    How much can I take out of the Philippines if it’s in pounds? Is it still 50k peso limit
  4. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    You can take your own pounds that you brought in back out of the country, I often take cash I don't spend back to the UK, I think the limit is 10,000 dollars equivalent but don't quote me on that.

    There is always another point that you need to be aware of, that UK customs could ask why you are carrying so much cash, you need to be able to prove the source of the funds, this is all to do with money laundering and the connection of large amounts of cash with the drug trade and other illegal activities.
  5. court95
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    court95 Active Member


    Ahh ye the 2nd point could be a problem. That’s understandle, I mean i could get a print out of my wife bank statement and if by some luck find someone selling sterling in ph I’ll keep the receipt to correspondence with the bank.
  6. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    The reason for the restrictions on PHP cash leaving the country are to do with currency stability, it's a central bank policy that they have loosened in recent times.
  7. court95
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    court95 Active Member

    I can understand that.

    So has anyone dealt with the bank transfer, anyone give me some details on charges on the ph end and the uk end.
  8. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    You might be able to approach a money changer to ask if you can buy pounds but be very careful to make sure you get a good exchange rate, the banks probably won't give a great exchange rate but it is worth asking them too.
  9. court95
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    court95 Active Member

    Ye I’ll check but with all that’s been said here I think the best route and safest might be bank transfer.
  10. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Western union would charge you 1100 peso to send to a UK bank account so that would be PHP cash at a Western Union agent converted by Western Union to pounds (check the exchange rate) and sent by them directly to a UK bank account.

    So that is at least a benchmark, ask the bank, BDO should be able to tell you what exchange rate they will offer and what the separate transfer fee for the service will be.

    BDO are quoting 68.78 right this minute which is not too bad but that is for Foreign Exchange hopefully they would charge the same for a transfer, that 68.78 price is probably based on last Friday the current international rate is 69.144 so it would be unusual for them to let you buy pounds from them at less than cost, looking at this though I would guess that you should look for an exchange rate that is no more than 1 peso greater than the current interbank exchange rate.

    upload_2018-1-13_23-20-52.png

    The fees are all at the sending end in the Philippines, there is no separate UK receiving fee unless you use PayPal when it is possible that there would be a transfer fee from Paypal to bank at both ends.
    • Agree Agree x 1
  11. court95
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    court95 Active Member


    Ahh that’s great information, thank you for this.
  12. Markham
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    Markham Guest

    Unless your wife already has an account with HSBC, it would not be worth it to open an account specifically for this one transfer as it presently takes up to a month to open an account as a new customer. And given that she is planning on leaving the country and taking her funds with her, HSBC will almost certainly reject her application.

    You can certainly transfer funds from BDO (and most other Philippine banks) and your wife should ascertain which method they use - Swift Codes or IBAN. If Swift - a five to ten character code that uniquely identifies the bank and branch of the account holder - you will need to ensure she knows the destination bank name and address, the target account name and its account number. On the other hand, if they require/prefer an IBAN - International Bank Account Number - then you'll need to ask your bank for the IBAN of the target account.

    Depending on which bank(s) are involved, both the sending and receiving banks may nor may not charge a separate fee which may be around £100 for this amount. (If you have HSBC accounts in both the UK and Philippines, the charge would be around £50 - £75 in total, reducing to zero for certain account types and you'd probably get a better exchange rate as well.)
  13. Maley
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    Maley Well-Known Member

    Okay i got that now.

    I tried sending my own money when i moved here in the UK. I asked BDO, BPI and metrobank and they all told me that its not possible. I dont know if they are not aware of it or they are lazy to find out - in all instances i spoke to the bank manager.

    I ended up sending it to myself via western union. Then brought along with me my ph atm/debit card with php balance on it for emergencies. I managed to withdraw money and use it for amazon without any problems.
  14. court95
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    court95 Active Member

    Ahh I think I’ll do the western union from php have it direct to my bank, seems like less hassle.

    Wonder why WU doesn’t have an app to send from ph world wide.
  15. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Because it's not a very normal direction for movement of funds.

    Vast amounts of private funds flow into the Philippines not much ever flows in the opposite direction.

    WU (Western Union) have infrastructure which is proportional to the amount of and type of business they conduct in any particular geographic locale, in the Philippines the predominant way to send money inside the country will be through the Cebuana, M'Lhulier and Western Union networks based on physical agent locations, effectively a vast network of corner shops, and the populace don't have great access to online financial services, the banks are behind the times in a global sense and not that many people have access to credit or debit cards that can be used online.

    This will change eventually but it will take time and probably quite a lot of time, in the meantime there is no financial incentive for the likes of WU to provide online infrastructure for international outgoing transfers from the Philippines.

    As I mentioned earlier just make sure WU don't rob you on the exchange rate, they are parasites and I hate them with a vengeance :)

    The main reason I hate them is that for the larger part of the last 14 years they charged 10 quid to send 100, send a 101 and it was 20 quid and the exchange rate was hideous as well, for a short period of about 18 months they got all philanthropic and gave a great exchange rate, almost the interbank rate, and they dropped the fees to a couple of quid but I think it is back to normal now, haven't checked for a while.
  16. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    My only experience of talking to HSBC in the Philippines was when I approached them in 2005 to ask about opening an account, they wanted a minimum of 1000 pounds deposit to even consider it and at the time I had that much but only in my business account in the UK and I needed that as part of my cash flow, so I never went back to HSBC as it all seemed too hard, all this time later and I still don't have an account over there which bothers me a lot.
  17. Maley
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    Maley Well-Known Member

    I would still suggest that if you are in a big city, like cebu or manila area, try asking the bank for such facility. I wonder how businesses settle their transactions or pay their overseas suppliers or how pinoys migrating to canada comply with requirments of having a ‘show money’ equivalent to about 3-6 months of expensese to start their new lives there.

    In the end, if the bank still says no then at least you can always fall back to WU.
  18. Drunken Max
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    Drunken Max Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    My Moneygram account has just been suspended and deactivated. No reason given.

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