Hi all what is the best way to send money to my wife in the Philippines ? Without getting ripped off with the Exchange rate thank you
"Worldremit", remittance arrives in seconds, good exchange rate, and haven't had any problems at all since we started with it. Extremely good communication until remittance is paid out. Cash pick up, bank payment, whathave you
It's not as simple as just worrying about the exchange rate, if there is a low FX margin charge but a large fixed fee then that is clearly not efficient for small transfers but might be quite good for large transfers. And then there is reliability of the service chosen and the kind of pay-out networks that are available. Right now there is another very important point to bear in mind many pay-out locations in the Philippines are closed, so Western Union for cash pickup is a bad idea, many services will allow direct deposits to bank accounts and right now that is the only practical way to send money. Personally for convenience reliability and general price (not the cheapest price) I use WorldRemit.
All the collection shops in the Phils are shut Dom, like Cebuana amd M'Lhullier and others, all closed including the ones that double up as Western Union shops. Bank only for me at the moment.
We also use world remit, very quick and easy service, if you decide to use I can give you a refer a friend code and you will get £20 after sending your first £100.
Ah fair enough, the app has been telling me everything was shut for a while, but it is a couple of weeks since I last sent.
I beg to disagree on that.. We sent remittance as cash pick up @ M'LHullier 3 days ago, and it was picked up with no problem the day after. If things have changed in the meantime, I don't know, but I intend to find out by phoning Worldremit, London office. and will report here my findings
You don't need to Dom I misread the message in the app, some of them may well be open the issue might be travel to actually pick up for a lot of people. I was also partly basing this on my son telling his mother at the weekend that Western Union was shut.
The recipients of our pecuniary largesse, were very good at avoiding the various police checks, thus saving a lot of greasemoney in the process.
Personally I use TransferWise. Best exchange rates, lowest fees, easy to use, in my bank in Philippines within minutes.
We have used "Remitly" three times in the last month and it was very efficient. Also, there was no fee for the first transfer.
My wife sent £430 this month at an exchange rate of 61.378 along with a £20 fee. I guess that’s not very good. This was on 30th April. She sends bank to bank over the internet at home. I think she prefers it this way but is paying extra for the convenience. Her bank is Nationwide.
None of the UK banks will give a good international transfer rate although 61.378 is not bad for a bank, but the fee is just insane that's equivalent to a CHAPS fee for instant payment, that's madness. I've done a few sums and my transfer on the 24th through WorldRemit when the rate was a lot worse would have still got me 200 peso more than your wife paid, had she sent on the same day as me I would have got 1200 peso more than she did. WorldRemit is bank to bank John, you can fund from a VISA debit card if you want, a lot of other methods are also bank to bank but UK banks are the worst for charges.