Sending money to the Philippines

If you are an Australian and have a relationship with a girl from the Philippines, the issue of money will come up somewhere along the way. Ideally it should never be a major factor in your relationship, and if it is? Well, maybe it’s time to do a bit of reflecting.

One of the things I really liked about when I first met Mila was that money was literally never an issue. She never asked. I never offered. The first time I sent her any money was when we had visa application expenses. And these days I can and do trust her 100% when it comes to money issues, and I consider myself to be very fortunate.

Then again, she was an OFW in Hong Kong, and didn’t have the same needs that some Filipina ladies have. Life in the Philippines for poorer people, it can be very tough indeed. And there are not too many decent men who can be OK to be living a luxurious life whilst the woman they love is malnourished and the power has been cut off. You need to do what you have to do, as long as you know in yourself that money isn’t the main reason that you are together.

How to send money to the Philippines

There are three main methods of money remittance these days:

• Transfer via your bank
• Transfer using a remittance service (eg western union, orbitremit, worldremit, iremit)
• Or giving her an ATM card to use with an Australian account

And there are several factors you should consider when choosing your remittance method to the Philippines:

• Fees charged
• Exchange rates
• Speed
• Convenience

Fees

Fees add up! So you want to consider this very carefully. Some can be very reasonable, whilst others can be exorbitant.

I’ve done transfers directly from the bank before, and these can be around $35.00 a transaction. This may or may not be standard, so you want to check on this.

Remittance services are usually more reasonable, with most charging around $8.00 to $10.00 per transaction.

ATM cards (with card access to an Aussie account)? These used to be reasonable, however lately a strange new $25.00 a transaction charge has appeared on top of the approx. $8.00 per transaction that applied before. So $33.00 every time money is taken out.

Keep in mind very much that transaction fees apply every time you send money. So if you send $500.00 once, you pay the transaction fees once! If you send 10 x $50.00 amounts, you will pay it 10 times. If you were paying $30.00+ a pop, that becomes absurd very quickly.

So strongly consider getting your lady to open a bank account! Send the allowance once a month, and then she can withdraw as she needs.

Exchange rates

Again, these can vary. Some banks will have exchange rates up to P5.00 less than the remittance services. That means a $500.00 transaction may cost you more than $70.00 more. Again, it soon adds up over time. So this, along with fees, should be the first thing you look at!

Speed

There are money remittance services to the Philippines that will have that money there within minutes, literally. However you generally find that you pay for that either in fees or in exchange rates.

Again, note what I said about money maybe once a month into a bank account. One transaction, and an account with an ATM card…..that’s about as good as it gets. If money needs to be there within minutes, then chances are you are spending all your time “putting out fires”, and you will probably find yourself having to drop everything and going into panic-mode because your lady has gone into panic-mode. You need to ask yourself if this is how you want to do things.

For most people, a next-day services is fast enough.

Convenience

I used to send money years ago (different lady …… *cough*) with western union. It meant going down to the newsagent, filling out forms, then needing to text money transfer control numbers so she could pop down to the local western union agent to get cash out. It definitely wasn’t convenient. It can be done online these days, but it still means she has to go there and take out cash. Very useful in emergencies, I’ll give you that. But day to day, no it’s not convenient at all.

I still think a bank account and an ATM machine is the most convenient, as is organising the remittance online.

I haven’t been comparing rates and charges for years, so I can’t tell you what’s currently the best to use. I will say though that we’ve personally and professionally used OrbitRemit for the last 5 years, and have been completely happy with them. Rates are good. Fees are low. It takes minutes to organise a transfer, and the money ends up in the bank account every time without a hitch.