Barclays bank and or HSBC

hi guys n gals
my name is roger and myself and my pal are travelling to CEBU in febuary 2014 for 2 weeks which also includes going to bohol could u guys out there tell me whats the best way to travel with money IE just use small bills etc and can i use my barclays debit card in local ATM's? such as HSBC? or is there a barclays branch in CEBU? we are british and our currency is the british pound?is that accepted in the country or is it best to use american dollars or peso's ?/ thanks guys..also would like to meet any expats male and female while we are there..cheers  roger

Plenty of ATMs but I havent seen any Barclays, there are a few HSBCs in major cities. Check which atm network Barclays is on and then check BDO and BPI (the two largest local banks) I would recommend bringing USD and not GBP if your going to exchange.

Hi, I regularly travel to Philippines. I have a barclays account as well. As long as you have a Visa logo on the card it should not be a problem to withdraw from ATM's that have the VISA logo.

Also to bring cash i dont see a need to change £ to $ as long as you bring English pounds and not Irish or Scottish as these are not so common with forex' and by the way dont bring anything lower than £20 notes to exchange as they tend to give lower rates for £10 notes.

There is a Barclays in Makati but not sure if Cebu or Bohol has it.

kimric wrote:

Hi, I regularly travel to Philippines. I have a barclays account as well. As long as you have a Visa logo on the card it should not be a problem to withdraw from ATM's that have the VISA logo.

Also to bring cash i dont see a need to change £ to $ as long as you bring English pounds and not Irish or Scottish as these are not so common with forex' and by the way dont bring anything lower than £20 notes to exchange as they tend to give lower rates for £10 notes.

There is a Barclays in Makati but not sure if Cebu or Bohol has it.


thanks for your help chaps :)

Hi my name Is  Ian I am from Wales Uk  you cannot use pounds in the Philippines only Peso but there is a good rate of exchange rate here better than the US at the moment the Pound is around 67 peso to one Pound the Dollar is around 46 to 47 , you can use your ATM card but a word of warning try to use the ATM machines near the Bank it is from , I had a Problem last year when a stand alone machine did not pay me out but registered that it had but lucky for me it sent an error message to my home bank and they put the money it took back into my account so be aware of that , it does not happen a lot but when it does it can cause a lot of problems,

@ Deca2015 > Thank you for your contribution to this thread, however this thread is very old (2013). :)

Do not hesitate to participate to newly created topics and to help members, or if you have some questions related to expatriation, you can also launch your own topic. ;)

Have a nice day,

Priscilla  :cheers:

Hi
Thanks for your reply dude only I did this post in 2013 ! Since then I've been back several times to Bohol and married my Filipina wife in may 15 we also now have a daughter together!