steve0084

Does anyone have experience with sending a large amount of money (around £5000) from a Philippines bank account to a UK bank account? I'm curious about the fees and exchange rates and whether it's easier to do it directly with the Philippines bank or through an alternative like Wise or Western Union.

Gazza-d

I know that transferring cash sterling from my UK account is free but if I want to transfer from my Philippines sterling account to the UK it's treated as an ordinary transfer and will cost. If you want to transfer pesos to the UK it will be expensive. You need to convert to US dollars then to UK pounds in the UK.

Pulaski

I have no personal experience of sending remittances through Philippine banks (I have had employers who send wires to/ received from Philippines banks) but for transferring small amounts (under, say $/£50,000-$/£100,000) generally banks are more expensive than using online remitters such as (Transfer)Wise, with the banks having both a poor exchange rate and charging higher fees. And with a bank your wire will likely have at least one wire fee deducted, typically $25-$35, and possibly a smaller fee, say £15 deducted by the bank in the UK that receives the wire.

BTW Western Union has absurdly high fees and I wouldn't even bother looking at them - you're paying for the brand and convenience of sending funds without having access to a computer, using local agents instead.

You can research online the rate that Wise is offering, and the fees they charge, and I would assume that the bank would also publish the exchange rates. It is possible that for small transfers, the bank offers a fixed rate for the day (which gives you a clue about how bad their rates are), but Wise uses a continuously variable rate throughout the day.

Stokkevn

If this could be a common occurrence it might be worth looking into having BPI accounts here and in London and seeing what their rates etc are like. They were quite competitive going the other way.

Gazza-d

I believe the Philippines government limit the amount of pesos you can send out of the country hence the need to convert it first.

Pulaski

For small amounts, poor rates can appear "quite competitive".

FWIW the PNB website, which is currently showing rates dated 28/20/2022 (see my previous comment above, about banks using a fixed rate for small transactions), is currently offering £14.71 for PHP1,000, whereas Wise is offering £14.93. But bear in mind that there will likely be wire fees on an exchange with PNB (see my comment above) to get the GBP to an account in the UK. The 22p difference might not sound much, but it's still about £73 (by my calculation) on PHP334,000, and from Wise there are no wire fees, so I would estimate that exchanging PHP334,000 using Wise will yield approximately £110-£125 more using current published rates and estimated wire fees, than using PNB.

Gazza-d

Looking on the wise app I couldn't see where you could send Philippine pesos.

Pulaski

Oh, you're right - the Wise web site says you can't currently send money from the Philippines, using Wise.

I'd still look for another on-line remitter though, as I am sure they'll (except Western Union) beat the best deal any bank would offer.

MidAtlantic

Here are two examples:
https://www.currenciesdirect.com
https://www.xe.com

Pulaski

Currenciesdirect.com seems to offer remittances from PHP, but Xe.com does not; neither does Oanda.com, so it appears that only a limited number of FX broker-remitters offer remittances from PHP/the Philippines.

MidAtlantic

I'm not sure why you are saying Xe.com doesn't. It does for me!
You are correct, there certainly are some that do not trade in PHP.

Pulaski

Dunno ... PHP wasn't on the drop-down list of "from" currencies on my phone, but it is on the list when I checked again on my computer.

steve0084

Thank you all for your answers.