Wise cards

I've been exploring this recently John.

I finally got a TransferWise account or Wise as they are now known, I also got the card they look like this now with all the details on the back.



Wise don't issue cards in the Philippines but your daughter is here in the UK, yes?

If she is here at the moment then she can get an account here and it can be topped up from here by anyone including yourself.

The Wise account is not technically a bank account but it functions exactly the same as one and it is effectively an International Bank Account but without FSCS protections.

Once you have signed up you can open balances in a number of major currencies, I've only opened a GBP balance from the major currencies and that gets you a UK GBP Sort code/Account code combination which allows you to receive money in that balance by Faster Payments, using the Sort Code/Account Code combination, from anyone.

Once you have a GBP balance you can convert some or all of that money to hold another currency (outside of the major ones that act like bank accounts) I've converted a bit of cash as an experiment so far to a PHP balance, this is going to be a brilliant way to save PHP when the exchange rate is favourable, either for sending or for spending over there.

I've made a couple of conversions so far totalling the amount below, and I've put a bit more GBP into it for later this week.


edit: that 7365.92 peso cost me a total of £105.96 an effective exchange rate of 69.51 peso to the pound and that at a time when the international bank rate was hovering between 69.4 and 69.99 to the pound.

I've also used the card at Lidl to activate contactless and I have also sent to the kids, to Metrobank, a small test of 3000 peso, it took a little longer than sending to Metrobank via WorldRemit which is instant but at about 4 hours it was exceptionally good and much cheaper.

What you do need to be aware of is that the Wise card is still an International VISA card and as such will be subject to local Philippine banks charging something like 200 peso for every ATM withdrawal, also the card only allows up to £200 per month to be taken as cash without fees after that there is a 50 pence fee for each withdrawal of cash (I think that's correct).

But for spending both contactless and Chip & Pin this card will be wonderful.

I am now also investigating GCash the most widespread Philippine mobile wallet, my kids could get that locally and get a debit Mastercard for it and Wise supports sending direct to a GCash mobile wallet, the GCash Debit Mastercard in the Philippines would be local and not subject to the international ATM fees, thus this combination could be the real solution.

I'll reply a bit more tonight as it's late just now and I was going to bed when I saw your post.

Ah ok understand, if I was you I would get her to look at GCash it's a Globe Telecoms thing but it will work with a Globe SIM card or a SMART SIM card.

GCash comes with the ability to get a Mastercard Debit Card and the card is linked to the GCash wallet, so then it becomes a simple matter of using Wise to transfer direct to the GCash wallet, everything else on her side is managed locally.

And remember that Wise can be used to send direct to many different Philippine bank accounts although the transfer time can vary a bit from one bank to another.

I'm not sure if you have noticed but if you use a debit card to fund a Wise transfer you will get an additional fee, and if you use a credit card to fund a transfer your credit card provider will treat it as quasi cash and hit you with a fixed fee and immediate accrual of interest on the money sent, the best way to use Wise is to move money direct from your bank to the GBP account details and then do the transfer from your balance or alternatively when sending just choose your own bank account as the funding source that way there are no additional fees.

As I understand it this GCash thing is a bit like GPay (Google Pay) over here, I think it might allow the users phone to do contactless NFC payments from the GCash account, you can also pay for lots of different things from GCash like electric and water bills cinema tickets and so on, I think that even a foreigner could have one of these accounts and use it from the UK if they have a roaming SIM card.

I would add one thing which is that I checked the reviews of the GCash app on Google Play and it does not do well, I think I am still interested in it but the amount of negative comments are not encouraging.

From a practical viewpoint sending from Wise to any other bank account for which your eldest daughter has a local Philippine card might in fact be the best option, that gets you the great transfer exchange rate and fees and also gets your daughter low ATM fees when taking out cash.

And as I mentioned earlier I've already done sending cash to Ana's ATM Metrobank account that and it worked pretty well in terms of the timescale of the transfer.

My kids are too young for me to be easily able to help them open a bank account over there without me being there and having up to date ID for them so this GCash thing looked interesting for them and also possibly for me once I next travel there.

Do you mean WorldRemit is less favourable the more you send?

WorldRemit is less favourable for a total cost of £1000 you get about 750 peso more if you send with Wise.

Not sure why that's creative?

Both these transfers cost £1000, both pay out to the same bank account, the Wise one pays out 68374 peso and WorldRemit pays out 67,522 peso, exactly the same total cost.

Wise takes the charge from what you send, WorldRemit adds it to what you send so you need to subtract the fee from the WorldRemit one to make the comparison equal, you also need to be sure that you are using the lowest cost mechanism for funding the transaction on Wise but you definitely get better value for money from Wise and my earlier mental arithmetic was wrong as it's 852 peso better.



Given that cash is often better in the Phils I would still use WorldRemit if I was sending money to myself to say a Cebuana shop when I am physically there as that way I can get 30,000 peso quickly without the additional ATM fees, but if I have access to her bank account then the ATM fees are pretty low and Wise would make more sense.

You can't have an additional cardholder on the account, the business account has multi user access but not the personal account.

But given that you can transfer direct from your main bank account to another Wise account using faster payments for free then just open another account, is this for your wife when on holiday?

Can I have an additional cardholder to my Wise card? | Wise Help Centre

You can open real bank accounts say in Singapore or a Euro account and these are like real bank accounts but you do have UK tax authority reporting issues to deal with if you do that, mostly transparent for individuals like us but for people with lots of money there are issues of reporting capital gains and the likes.

The other option is opening a balance in another currency it's not quite a bank account but it is very close and I've done that already by opening a peso balance, what I am doing now each month is transferring/converting money from my savings when I think the exchange rate is good, right now this weekend it's up at 68.92 on Wise for the weekend but the rate on XE is 69.24 which was unexpected, anyway by converting cash in advance of my pay day I am building up a peso balance at good rates so I can send to the kids next Thursday.

It feels like I now have an actual Philippine bank account but of course I would still be subject to the high ATM fees as it is an international card and you get a pretty paltry limit on cash withdrawals on the Wise card before they start charging you a lot in transaction fees, but you are starting to be able to do a lot of stuff cashless in the Philippines, I have long paid for things like restaurants on my older cards like Revolut and FairFX and my new Nationwide FlexPlus account has fee free debit card transactions at the international bank exchange rate, but in general I would prefer not to use my main bank card overseas so the Wise card with good on/off controls in the app is a great new feature.

One of the really great features of this Wise account is that when I retire I will be able to use the account details as the target for my pension drawdown payments, I would be able to do this even if it turned out that my pension savings were not enough for my plan A which is a buy a home in Scotland and spend most of my time in the Philippines, I could still use it for my pension payments without needing a UK address under my plan B, it's actually really hard to get private pensions paid out to foreign bank accounts and it's also getting harder to retain a UK bank account if you are not UK resident so the Wise account is freakin brilliant for me.

It will also let me continue to work for my current employer as a consultant after I retire as they will be easily able to pay me.

Which bank was that?

I take you still have a residential address in the UK, all the banks seem to be very keen on closing the accounts of anyone who does not have a UK address, I believe my bank the Nationwide do still currently allow people to retain their UK account while working or living abroad, but this account closure stuff is something that worries me and is one of the reasons I want to retain a base in the UK.