WU Transfers

@Andy_1963

Understood, but my source of funds are not coming from inside the philippines. The source is from the US in USD. So regardless if its Wise, WU or BDO, at some point the USD will need to be converted. Thats the challenge to find the lowest conversion rate with lowest processing fee and balance that with the speed/processing time for the deposit to hit. No possible way for me to send my USD from WF to bdo in peso without converting. Only way to do as you advised is if the source is already in PHP…

@danfinn

I will be sending some transfers next month via Wise in the $1000/$1500 Range and I will update here with my results…What I do know as fact is a $100 & $500 are instant and $2500 & $3000 are 7 days, at least for me so far.

@Andy_1963 Understood, but my source of funds are not coming from inside the philippines. The source is from the US in USD. So regardless if its Wise, WU or BDO, at some point the USD will need to be converted. Thats the challenge to find the lowest conversion rate with lowest processing fee and balance that with the speed/processing time for the deposit to hit. No possible way for me to send my USD from WF to bdo in peso without converting. Only way to do as you advised is if the source is already in PHP… - @vehicross100

My main concern regarding conversion rates has always been with very large transfers wired from the US. Whether we purchased cars or property here, we always had our CU make the transfer in DOLLARS because, as many of us know, sending pesos to a Philippine bank will go through some currency conversion system in the US and we get the worst rate possible and effectively cost thousands of dollars. Of course, we are not discussing wiring money in this thread but, in order to transfer here that way meant that the car dealerships and property owners receiving the funds had dollar accounts, one of them being BDO Unibank for the Toyota dealership.

You said:

No possible way for me to send my USD from WF to bdo in peso without converting. Only way to do as you advised is if the source is already in PHP

I don't believe that is true. Maybe I am missing something, and of course some receivers will not have dollar accounts, but in most cases, foreigners and larger businesses do have dollar accounts that you can send your WF to without converting to php where the local phol bank will possibly give you the best rate. Then you could focus and transfer speed alone wih WISE or whichever remittance company you might use and let your receiving bank give you the optimum conversion rate.

          I always write a check to my wife from my Wells Fargo USA account which she deposits into her BDO US Dollar account.  The cost, no matter what the size of the check is $5.  The only problem is BDO claims it takes 30 days to clear, while the full amount comes out of my USA account in 5 days.  Just have to plan ahead.

mugtech said . . . . I always write a check to my wife from my Wells Fargo USA account which she deposits into her BDO US Dollar account. The cost, no matter what the size of the check is $5. The only problem is BDO claims it takes 30 days to clear, while the full amount comes out of my USA account in 5 days. Just have to plan ahead.

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I had the same experience seven years ago with BDO when I moved here. Yup plan ahead, I never did that again. Then I used ATM's to withdraw cash, Pesos, from my Citibank USA checking account.

Then I discovered Wise and problem solved.

     I always write a check to my wife from my Wells Fargo USA account which she deposits into her BDO US Dollar account. The cost, no matter what the size of the check is $5. The only problem is BDO claims it takes 30 days to clear, while the full amount comes out of my USA account in 5 days. Just have to plan ahead. - @mugtech

I think those legacy banking methods are more expensive and slower than modern fintech. However, they are time-proven and don't require smartphones and internet access or technical skills. In the late 80s, from the US, I used to send CU issued checks by registered mail. Those checks, written to a person, were similar to cashier's checks or postal money orders which were accepted in the Phils by banks immediately, like cash. Then came a Western Union office in Siquijor and that changed everything. So much more convenient, fast, reasonable cost and still low tech, compared to today. It was at about the same time that analog cell phones connecting to SMART came out. greatly increasing convenience for telephone calling. There were no landlines in that part of Siquijor; we had to call the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co (PLDT) office in the next town to arrange what they called a "messenger call". For that, the office sent a messenger to my family's house on a motorbike, and drove them to the PLDT office and coordinated the call with us. I think those calls cost us $10.00 minute in 1990. Around 1992, when the Smart cellphones came out, I think we could call for 50 cents per minute. But I digress (extremely lol). I only bring it up to reflect on the large delta improvement between messenger calls and WhatsApp calls today being similar to that of sending credit union checks by registered mail and using WISE to transfer funds today.

@danfinn

I once had a BDO Dollar account but never really found a use for it. The two times we used it was to withdraw  large sums for a downpayment on a car, house or something…CRS

Anyway, we sat there for like a hour while we watched a lady hand write every $100 dollar bill serial number down before giving to us so we could look for a good money exchange.

The other time we were just going to do a BDO in house transfer from Dollar account to Peso Account.

BDO Would not just simply do a in house electronic conversion, transfer/deposit from my dollar to peso…

No, Once again we had to wait while they had to physically withdraw the dollars from dollar account, go sit at a table and watch a lady slowly  write and document all the $100 serial numbers, then they converted and deposited into my peso account. After that I was done and let it go.

So yes your right I definitely can send Dollar to Dollar here, but for me at that time 2016/17 it just didn't make since. Maybe a different bank works differently now IDK.

Interesting fact that might help someone else out. I found out that BPI has a USA routing number, so at that time I was thinking of trying to have my CALPERS check Direct deposit there to make things simple.

Went to BPI and asked if this was possible and they stated yes. Then I asked if I can simply transfer and convert from my dollar to pesos online and they stated No. I would have to go there every month and Physically withdraw, and just like BDO, document, exchange, then deposit. So not wanting to have to monthly drive there, look for parking, wait for and hour while they documented all the Serial #’s,

I decided to shelve that one too.

@vehicross100

In my case I never got that concerned about age, exchange rate and gender. I will just see how it goes.

FWIW, I tried to set up a $400 transfer via Wise and no matter how I formatted the transfer directly bank to bank, deposit into Wise, ACH, non ACH etc,

Wise only offered a 7 day transfer speed.

Went to WU and set up the same $400 transfer and it was in seconds.

So thats what I used.

Cost/Rate difference was equal to a little under p300 in Wise’s favor

So for me it doesn’t appear that Wise is Always better. Speed vs Rate/Fees

So far Wise seems to be better for larger transactions in the $3000 range but in the $300-$500 it’s a toss up depending on what each is offering at any given time.

In the future I will set up each transfer with both and just decide who has the best rate vs Transfer speed etc at that specific time and choose.

FYI, after reading this I tried to set-up a $400 WISE transfer from my USA credit union to my MAYA card. Results were, transfer direct from bank, instant. I could also use a listed debit card or new debit card where they promised the transfer in hours. Yesterday I payed our Siquijor power bill of less than $100 direct from my bank to power company bank; it was instant but it seems some algorithm was triggered to investigate something, however it did go through in a few minutes (not clean). It seems that the timing of the transfers is not consistent at this time. I would not accept a 7 day transfer and instead would go to remitly or worldremit and choose the debit card option if I must for fast  transfers. I hope WISE eventually figures oit how to make their transfer times as reliable and predictable as their rates because, apparently, that is not the case right now. Also, at random times, all of these remittance companies may tell you the transfer is "instant" but then during the transfer a delay occurs because somebody is doing additional investigation. That can take hours or days. When that happens, customers should be able to cancel the transfer so we can send with a different remittance company. The reason is, they promised "instant" so we made a decision to use them. When they then delay, that can be problematic as happened to me once with remitly and I was in the dentist's office paying a larger bill and could not satisfy the payment in front of the secretary. Very embarrassing. So I learned something about remitly "instant" transfers that day.

On mine, it stated in seconds then when I hit the pay button a notice popped up saying unfortunately the transfer cannot be done in seconds and it would be 7 days, asking if I want to continue or choose a different payment. So thats when I canceled and tried all the other ways I mentioned above. Everyone in the beginning would state in seconds but once I actually hit the pay button is where that notice popped up. So maybe something to do with my source bank WF. IDK

But WU worked great for that transfer…