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Hi Steve, for what purpose - transferring funds from Aus bank into a PH bank account?

I had issues with Remitly, but forget what they were, been a couple years.

I use World Remit when I want to transfer for her to do a cash pickup, like at M L'Huiliier. Not great rates.

Wise works fine for transferring to a bank account, decent rates. They were slow however the last time I used them to transfer cash to buy our used Navara pickup, but it was over a holiday.  You can send large amounts if you give them direct access to your account, which is nice, although I haven't done that..

My bank (Wells Fargo) is hands down the fastest and most reliable for me, using their Express Send service, it's in the bank in an hour or two max. One miss in 10 years.. and it was at BPI's end. Comparable rate to Wise. So that's what I use most of the time. Interestingly it's the only US bank that provides that service AFAIK.

I know that doesn't help your situation but maybe one of your Aussie banks has a comparable service?

Cheers

I use Wise almost exclusively since switching from Remitly. No issues so far and they usually have one of the best exchange rates

Long story short PNW my bank of over 40 years can't send me an OTP now and countless hours on the phone and chatting on their chat internet service they continually blame my carrier in the Philippines and not their problem, this has been ongoing for near 6 months even though my other bank in Oz works theirs doesn't, I get calls from Oz all the time.

Initially I could log into my accounts online and check balances etc. and if I wanted to transfer funds to the Philippines they would send me a one time password for the transfer, worked for the last 7/8 years,,,,,,,,, now for some reason I can't even log into my accounts as now they want an OTP that I never receive.

Regardless I can't monitor my account balances without access. My westpac visa/debit card pays bills in Australia automatically and without knowing the balance?

Thing is they had a great exchange rate to the Philippines, about .1 to point 12% was the worst under the market rates and now won't work.

Set up a visa debit card with my other bank for the regular bills in Oz but their exchange rate sucks, around 2.5 pesos per dollar lower than Westpac and about to buy a new car and bad bank compared to Westac that I can't access  is near P150K difference on a simple transfer.

I have set up an account with Remitly and about to look at Wise but seems they all have limits on transfers, A lot more searching and I will get my needs, sorted.

Thanks for the input.

Cheers, Steve.

@bigpearl

WISE will give you a USA and EU checking account for direct deposit etc. Not sure if that is important to you or available as an Australian account.

I found remitly to be great for smaller transfers around $1K USD. I sent about $3K to a dentist's bank account, first time that high, and was immediately investigated on remitly for KYC or AML. That resulted in a delay but remitly promised no more investigations in the future. After that I never had occasion to transfer that amount but for large amounts I just plan to continue with SWIFT wire transfer using my bank. The KYC song and dance was a real pain and cost me many long distance calls to remitly on Google fi. Again, Australia may not be as strict at the US for KYC and AML (suspicion of money laundering).

So for me I consider remitly to be great for day to day bill.paying and other smaller personal transfers to GCASH, MAYA, palawanan/Lhuillier/LBC etc. transfers, to Filipinos, for example, to workers.

Wise, I have only used occasionally, also to transfer smaller amounts. At one time I considered having my pensions deposited there but decided against it due to reports of other expats having their accounts closed for no known reason. Usually that is due to the KYC AML BS. I know of no service that is immune to their algorithms monitoring "suspicious activity".

But you may hear glowing reports of successful use of WISE by USA and other expats,  even for larger transfers on a regular basis. I don't trust either of them with larger amounts of money that they earn interest on during the duration of their KYC AML investigations.

@bigpearl Hi Steve, I’ve only used Wise, and so far have been pretty happy with it. It’s linked to my OZ account - international payments, and transfers, are fast and very cheap. You can hold various currencies.

And it’s AU$10 to get an ATM card that’s associated with Visa - it seems to work everywhere. Nice to have access to another account that’s easy to use.

Cheers.

Thinking of setting up an account with one of the above companies, any thoughts or recommendations?Cheers, Steve. - @bigpearl

Hi Steve ,

I have only ever used the Western Union app and have only ever sent under $1k USD with a debit card.  Sending to a GCash account is a flat $1.99 USD and is almost always transferred within 1-10 mins.  Transferring to a PH bank account costs a flat rate of $2.99 USD (I did this one time only).  Transferring to in-person pick-up is the most(*) expensive at a flat $3.99 USD (I did this a couple of times in the beginning, but just send exclusively to GCash now).  Each time you send a transfer you earn points, which can be used to wave the fee on a future transfer.  Again, these have all been under $1k USD, so not sure of any "gotchas" when sending larger amounts.  The app says you can send up to $19,000 USD at a time, which I don't think I would ever try.  I'd opt for a bank wire or similar for anything over $3k USD, but that's just me.  Also, I checked it against Wise and Remitly a while back and the exchange rate was a little worse than those two, but with fees and the amount I was sending, WU came out a little cheaper overall.  This will likely not always be the case.  Which reminds me I need to do another check next time.

I also have several Fidelity accounts, including their Cash Management account which is similar to (but not quite like a) bank checking account.  The good thing about it is you can use it at ATM's in the PH and they reimburse you the foreign transaction fees.

(*) - I think bank -to- bank account is the most expensive, but never tried it.  I've only ever used a debit card to send.

I am using Wise for all the money transfers from Austria to the Philippines. Within 2 minutes it is from my bank account on the Wise bank account in Belgium and from there it is another 2 minutes to the BDO account of my wife.

So everything is done in 10 minutes. The SWIFT banktransfer takes 4 days and 24 EUR fees for 1k EUR. Wise charges 3 EUR.

Andy

@bigpearl

Monito will compare them. Depends on the amount, where the money is coming from (bank, card etc...) and where it is sent to (card, bank, cash pickup etc...). Wise will take a PH address, no cash pick-up and you get a debit card.

The most important thing is overlooked in transfers, it's not the fee,

It's the exchange rate.

Western Union

When my wife & I we sent money monthly to the Philippines for years.

WU had a frequent users program where you earned points redeemable for cash.

So I decides to trade my points for cash, I had accumulated $150. WU sent me 30 $5 debit cards. It was really irritating, I couldn't see myself making a purchase at Walmart and trying to pay with 25 or 30 cards.

Well I put the cards in a drawer and decided I will use them. It turns out the cards expired after 30 days so the cards were useless.

I called customer service going around and around on their automated menu. When I finally got somebody more or less they told me to pound salt.

I am using Wise for all the money transfers from Austria to the Philippines. Within 2 minutes it is from my bank account on the Wise bank account in Belgium and from there it is another 2 minutes to the BDO account of my wife.
So everything is done in 10 minutes. The SWIFT banktransfer takes 4 days and 24 EUR fees for 1k EUR. Wise charges 3 EUR.

Andy - @Andy_1963

There is a certain irony in that the Swift International bank transfer system is headquartered in Brussels also.

If you're looking for cheap services just understand their limitations. Remitly, WorldRemit, Wise etc are all cheap because their business is smaller transactions for domestic purposes. Your bank charges you more because they'll take on anyone - larger amounts, more frequent.

Remitly was the best and cheapest but they banned me when my transfers became higher in value and more frequent. It's not a personal thing, it's the algorithm. They're a cheap service and they don't investigate anything - upset the algorithm and you're gone. The dude in the help centre was apologetic but unhelpful. It was "computer says".

WorldRemit were almost as good but now I'm with Wise and I can't remember why. Wise are also fine, provided once again it's smaller amounts. Very occasionally transfers are delayed, up to three days. No explanation given.

With Wise I was sending small amounts to family and friends in Philippines and Thailand. Then my father died and his family in Thailand desperately needed money so I attempted to transfer, from memory, $A15,000. Wise immediately suspended my account and initiated an integrity check that required ID, bank statements, pay slips etc. I couldn't get all this together at once and the family in Thailand were desperate so having access to other funds (my $A15,000 was frozen by Wise) I used my bank who transferred the money no problems at all for ten times the fees. That's the difference. You pay for a cheap service, you get a cheap service. Pay a bank and they'll do whatever you want, for a huge fee

@Brojeslov

First, when large amounts are transferred, it's not the fees: Those amounts are trivial compared to the amount sent.

I agree, limit your transfers from the remittance services to less than US $600.00. Others may consistently transfer more on a regular basis, I know. These services never tell you the upper limits that kick off their algorithms, or which amounts might apply to you. I say $600 because, once they start their KYC investigation song and dance, they never let you just drop the transfer and move on. Instead they force you to see it through, suspending your account and dragging you through all the KYC verification bullshit that should have been done when they verified you at sign-up, just to get your money back. And although probably unlikely,  what happens if no matter what you do, they still choose not to verify you? They cancel you and confiscate whatever money was in there?

Rule of thumb: Never attempt to transfer more than you can afford to lose when you use these somewhat flakey services that are controlled by algorithm.

Again, using remitly to transfer for day to day expenses is an invaluable service for me. I'm sure wise would be the same and maybe better in some respects.

For transfers in the thousands I would use the banks and SWIFT. I might also consider Western Union, not sure. At least they have brick snd mortar stores everywhere to send and receive money rather than the more suspicious online transfes, with warm bodies you can talk to before sending to yourself or receiving from yourself,  from your USA bank. I would be interested in knowing other's experiences with western union and perhaps xoom. I only experimented with western union once and it worked fine.

Quote:

"I agree, limit your transfers from the remittance services to less than US $600.00. Others may consistently transfer more on a regular basis, I know. These services never tell you the upper limits that kick off their algorithms, or which amounts might apply to you."

One of the services I used asked me how much I plan to send each montth. This may have personalized the algorithm for KYC.

Quote:
"I agree, limit your transfers from the remittance services to less than US $600.00. Others may consistently transfer more on a regular basis, I know. These services never tell you the upper limits that kick off their algorithms, or which amounts might apply to you."
One of the services I used asked me how much I plan to send each montth. This may have personalized the algorithm for KYC. - @Twlk123

Whichever service that was (you didn't specify), it sounds like this "might" be an improvement but, correct me if I am wrong, they did not guarantee 'not' to put you through the KYC ringer and suspend you if you do out exceed that amount.

I'd been a happy and profitable customer of Remitly for three years before falling foul of the algorithm, which happened because I sent a series of larger transfers to people previously unknown to me (holiday expenses for a trip arranged by family locally). The first I knew about the trouble was when the last transfer, approx $A1000, didn't go through. After a couple of days I contacted the help centre who advised that my account had been cancelled - they said they didn't know why. It was done by another area. I asked if there was someone in the other area I could talk to and they said someone would ring me back. A day later someone rang me back and told me my account was cancelled and he didn't know why - it was the computer. I said I was a good customer, had records of all payments, so was there someone I could talk to. Only him, he replied. Can you help me, I asked. No, he said. No-one could help me, he explained, because my account was cancelled 😅

I'd been a happy and profitable customer of Remitly for three years before falling foul of the algorithm, which happened because I sent a series of larger transfers to people previously unknown to me (holiday expenses for a trip arranged by family locally). The first I knew about the trouble was when the last transfer, approx $A1000, didn't go through. After a couple of days I contacted the help centre who advised that my account had been cancelled - they said they didn't know why. It was done by another area. I asked if there was someone in the other area I could talk to and they said someone would ring me back. A day later someone rang me back and told me my account was cancelled and he didn't know why - it was the computer. I said I was a good customer, had records of all payments, so was there someone I could talk to. Only him, he replied. Can you help me, I asked. No, he said. No-one could help me, he explained, because my account was cancelled 😅 - @Brojeslov

But did you ever get your money back after cancellation or did they seize it? These services may not be covered by traditional banking regulations.

I have been sending in the $2500 range x 2  transactions, Bank to Bank (WF to BDO) for last 5 years via WU.

$2.99 each, sometimes free once points are added up.

No problems,

Sometimes money is available in minutes other times up to a 4-6 day transfer time.

@pnwcyclist

Didn't know I could send directly bank to bank via WF to BDO, instead of using WU.

Something I need to follow up on and compare.

Looks like I need to set service up at a US branch first, then I would need to call them to initiate every transfer afterwards or able to process online or via app ?

@vehicross100

Sometimes money is available in minutes other times up to a 4-6 day transfer time.

That's the problem. If I transfer bank to bank via SWIFT it is highly reliable and you probably won't get bit by a KYC investigation. Also. You know the drill, it takes 4-6 days but if you are making a large purchase this is not unreasonable.

However, if you are transferring WU for living expenses and walking around money, unless you are some nerd who plans ahead for everything, 6 days is too long. And from what you say, it could be instant for a few thousand dollars or it could take 6 days. But supposedly WISE will consistently transfer amounts like $600, direct from checking or savings (debit card not selected) immediately to your GCASH or MAYA, which provides you with local debit cards, which is perfect after your USA debit card expires. From what you say, the transfer from WU is arbitrary and unpredictable  (I don't want to put words in your mouth so correct me if needed) so we must assume 6 days for WU if you cannot charge it to an active US debit card. But they might surprise you with an instant transfer, right?