Moving to the Philippines

hi ,your research has lead you wrong there are no visa that allow you stay over 2 months  /59 day visa ,if you were staying in manila then there is a visa extension you can get after initial stay but it costs as much as 3x2 month,to enter you will need to have a return ticket or onward ticket within the visa validity .i would say no problem to rent 6 months or even longer   ,you can send me a pm if any further questions.

Anti money laundering laws makes it near impossible to open a bank account. I tried to open one with BPI using my ACR-1 visitors. Card. They refused me. I think you can just keep trying different banks, you might get lucky. I read that if you can open an account with a Philippines bank in your home country, then it becomes easier. Then u can simply transfer money.

Munchie wrote:

Anti money laundering laws makes it near impossible to open a bank account. I tried to open one with BPI using my ACR-1 visitors. Card. They refused me. I think you can just keep trying different banks, you might get lucky. I read that if you can open an account with a Philippines bank in your home country, then it becomes easier. Then u can simply transfer money.

I can't imaginge why it would be difficult to open an account at most any bank as most banks in fact require you to have the ACR card to open the account.
Opening an account overseas will work, yes. Just stay away from Philippine National Bank. Horrible service, time consuming to deal with when here in the islands, much of the time they are offline and can not do business and the list goes on.
China Bank is good as is BPI. However, most require that ACR unless opening a peso acct...

You are wrong as with the SRRV one you most certainly can.Not cheap but good. To open a account in the Phil you must get verification of a bank a/c of your country of origin and then no problems.

ken-if you are referring to my previous post  -then i was talking about tourist visa   as op had mentioned there were visas for  3 and 6 months   =which there are not  .

The SSRV would be and excellent route to go if you ever wanted to slip away from your wife in the night. No hassles with divorce.  I still think 13a is the way to go if you are married to a Filipina.

Just my experience neighbor. I had all that from ANZ Bank in Townsville. Went to ANZ Bank in Makati to open a peso account, and was told sorry, come back when you have 13a visa and permanent ACR-1 card. My tourist class ACR-1 did not cut the mustard. These anti money laundering laws are new, my bank sticks to them.

Munchie wrote:

Just my experience neighbor. I had all that from ANZ Bank in Townsville. Went to ANZ Bank in Makati to open a peso account, and was told sorry, come back when you have 13a visa and permanent ACR-1 card. My tourist class ACR-1 did not cut the mustard. These anti money laundering laws are new, my bank sticks to them.

G'day Munchi,

I noticed that you used an ANZ bank for your money transfers and was wondering is it easier if you end up living in the Philippines, ie: marry a Filipina?

Haven't approached ANZ as yet, as I wanted to get the necessary info from the 'horses mouth', so to speak.

Cheers