Nah Xoom is still dead to non American's Colin, Xoom was not always instant it was only in its later days that it got close to instant and it was still expensive too, but this yespinoy thing looks good for sending 20 quid in a hurry and as we all know there are always small emergencies that sometimes need attention in the Phils.
Yes this yespinoy would be expensive for any large transactions but it certainly beats Western Union for small ones, the only selling point WU has is instant transfer for which you pay £4.90 on a £50 transfer or £6.90 if you use one of their physical agents (shops). What I like about this yespinoy service is that it would let me send 1300 peso for a water bill that she's forgotten to pay for example or some other small emergency. Just now I end up sending 50 quid just to try to minimize the overall transaction percentage of the horrendous WU transfer fee, since iKobo went under there has not been a cheap instant transfer service and this one sounds ok, I don't mind a couple of quid on a twenty quid transfer but a fiver is just out of order
I would like to open an account in PH myself to add funds as and when I have, wondering which bank may be best? Union Bank or maybe PNB as they have offices in London?
Some folk have had success, but basically you can't mate, unless you have access to someone who knows a bank manager it is very very hard, on every application you will find a requirement to have an ACR card or Alien Certificate of Registration and you only get that if you are resident over there. I thought about it many times but never succeeded. You might be able to set up something with PNB in the UK, something like the Golbal pinoy card, PNB are also very good for remittances (in terms of fees). I'm based far away from London so have never had an opportunity to explore these options.
Think its possible with PNB - but they like you to make a monthly direct debit from your UK account to kinda keep things still 'cooking' I guess also an HSBC account could work too.
I have found a new UK bank called Metro Bank (no known association with Philippines bank of the same name) that has a debit card. Most bank debit cards have a loading on top of the card's underlying rate (in this case Mastercard rate) and it levies no fees on ATM withdrawals. There will still be the usual 200 Pesos Philippines ATM fee though. Although HSBC have a presence in Philippines, I think you really need its Premier Account in the UK to take advantage, and that has exorbitantly high income/savings requirements. What about Citibank? You can transfer monies to other Citibank account holder worldwide, at very low rates, but you need to take a close look at the fees structure at the Philippines end, to ensure it is worthwhile. So maybe be good if your Mahal can open a Citibank account, for remittances.
OK to all that - Citibank were very efficient and secure when I used their ATMs in PH, also Metro Bank ATMs there got me out of trouble when I was in the province and mistakenly using a PH transaction only ATM. Cindy has limited ID and paperworks to open an account. But I am thinking for me would be good if I have at least some in a bank there instead instead of relying completely on my credit cards...
From what OSS said earlier, you cannot open a bank account without an Alien Registration Card (ARC). Maybe you just need need a bank which has a presence in both UK and Philippines and which can supply you with a replacement debit card (should it get lost) or will allow you to withdraw funds from your UK account on presentation of valid ID? I am pretty sure HSBC do something along those lines (if you can meet the eligibility requirement for their Premier account), not sure if Citibank do though. If you want to use a credit card overseas (for purchases or withdrawals) then the Halifax Clarity Card is your best bet. Runner-up prizes go to the Post Office Credit Card and Nationwide's new Select Card.
I remember the good old days when the exchange rate was 115 peso to the pound and I would withdraw cash on my Nationwide Debit Card no charges whatsoever, how things have changed in just a few years. Howerd I did mention in another thread you can open a basic savings account with ATM access with HSBC Philippines no need for any Aliens Card or anything like that - all they need is your UK address, your Philippines address and a landline number in Philippines, along with 2 ID (one photo such as passport). I opened such an account no problems, but they seem to make it easier if you have an existing account with any of HSBC group worldwide - even a HSBC UK credit card or savings account. Beware though, I understand now that HSBC Phils have 'relationship' balance of 50,000 peso for the most basic savings accounts, as is common with other banks over there.
115 Pesos to the £? That must have been a very long time ago! The Nationwide Debit card (and also its cash card) were brilliant. Not only did Nationwide not load the exchange rate, they actually removed the loading imposed by Visa! When Visa increased their loading to 1%, Nationwide were no longer willing to suffer the loss. Not long after that, Nationwide started loading the debit card themselves (in addition to the Visa loading). But their existing SELECT CREDIT CARD has no loading imposed by Nationwide and also offers 0.5% cashback on purchases - a pretty good deal for both UK and overseas spending. I am sure OSS and Shinx would be very interested. I don't personally need such an account unless it is a cheap way of moving money from UK to Philippines. I have tried to find such an account on the HSBC website but I cannot find it. Maybe it is no longer available, or they just try to hide it? Can you provide a link, or give the name of the account?
Here you go: http://www.hsbc.com.ph/1/2/personal/deposits/pesoaccounts I can't seem to drill down to any further information possibly because we are located outside Philippines - I keep getting a redirect to http://www.hsbc.com.ph/1/2/personal/deposits/wab-page . I would imagine due to Philippine Bank regs, you would be unable to open an account online anyway, you would need to go into branch while in country. Its seems the account I have is now called the HSBC Peso Savings Account, mine is the old Classic Savings account.
I was having exactly the same problem and it is because we are in the UK that we cannot find a link to the right page! Now that you have given me the name of the account - CLASSIC - I have managed to find reference to opening that account on the HSBC website and it seems there is no requirement for an Alien Registration Card to open an HSBC Classic account, PowerVantage, PopwerVantage Plus or Premier account in the Philippines, but they do require you to be resident... https://www.apps.asiapacific.hsbc.com/1/2/mnl2/account-opening?WABFormEntryCommand=cmd_init The Classic account only requires 25,000 Pesos minimum balance but it can only be opened at the following HSBC branches... http://www.hsbc.com.ph/1/PA_1_2_S5/...forms-documents/pdf/hbph_easy_guide_class.pdf The HSBC PowerVantage, PowerVantage Plus and Premier accounts can be opened at other HSBC branches but require minimum balances of 100,000; 500,000 and 4,000,000 respectively!
Opening a bank account in the Philippines can be done with the help of the Manager. Be watchful on the small print of Phils accounts as many may be closed or made dormant due to a number of days inactivity.
World Remit offer a pretty good service for small amounts that can be either to bank account or personal collection. Their new fees are now more competitive.
Our site now has adverts for World Remit - looks like the advertising engine has spotted our posts? There has certainly been a lot of referrals from internet search engines too.
They're the new kid on the block, as far as remittance is concerned! I was curious with World Remit the first time I came across them, and as I started my business with them I only sent a small amount just in case they were a scam (which I can be glad to say that they are not). However, given that I now have a top up mastercard here with me in the Philippines and no name on it. I will give that to Joy as payments take minutes to load onto the card and are then available from any ATM. Might not be as cheap, but for the sheer convenience I doubt you can beat it!
Anything you show an interest in Howerd will end up getting advertised on this site and others, they all appear to work the same way these days, you will find World Remit ads popping up all over the internet whenever you visit sites now because in essence you personally are being tracked via the cookies on your computer, it's all personalised advertising these days. For example everywhere I go I get KLM ads just because I visit the KLM quite often and tend to post about KLM quite a lot. Another one, I was interested a while back was looking at contract work via the Elance site, next thing I was getting Elance ads appearing here and on the car forum that I use quite often. It's all just the magic of google at work fairly harmless.
This targeted advertising definitely goes beyond any tracking cookies. I always use private browsing (Internet Explorer) or incognito browsing (Chrome and Comodo Dragon) - I use command line options in the shortcuts to ensure all the browsers start up that way. At the end of the session ALL cookies are lost! It also goes beyond looking at IP addresses as I have a floating IP address. As soon as I went to our lovely website today (freshly booted PC) and before logging in, there was a large advert for World Remit in the bottom right of the screen. Maybe an Admin put it there or there have just been numerous Google referrals to the World Remit thread? You can see all the search engine terms (at the bottom of the thread) which have resulted in over 1,000 people ending up on that thread! It is definitely not tracking cookies in any of my browsers that is making many of these ads visible to me (at least not on a newly booted PC and freshly-opened browser) I don't know what other techniques targeted advertising may use but consider this... http://panopticlick.eff.org/
