Wanting a Filipino bank account but based in UK

[Ruddy_Rooster]

Hi all.  Apologies for being lazy as it's probably in the forum somewhere but is it possible to open a basic Filipino bank account from within the UK and if so, where do I start?

 

Also while I'm here (but understand it might require a new thread), is my UK based paypal account usable in Phils?  If so I assume there would be no problems transferring funds to a Filipino bank account?

[robert k]

I'm not the best one to answer this but I will point out that if you go to the home page and scroll down, less than halfway down there is a specific section on banking. Good luck.

[Sander Martin]

Its going to hard if not impossible. I was in the country and tried to open an account. They demanded an ACR card (the bank worker was my fiances good friend). Best i could was a joint account.

You might want to look at other companies for you transfers (like Transferwise). Theres a few topics in this forum. You would be surprised on how much more pesos you could grt from your pounds.

[chris49]

15 hours ago, Ruddy_Rooster said:

Hi all.  Apologies for being lazy as it's probably in the forum somewhere but is it possible to open a basic Filipino bank account from within the UK and if so, where do I start?

 

Also while I'm here (but understand it might require a new thread), is my UK based paypal account usable in Phils?  If so I assume there would be no problems transferring funds to a Filipino bank account?

What would be the purpose of this account? Obviously to TF money, to yourself?

The easy solution, would be to get a Filipino to open a Balikbayan Account is his/her name for 100 pesos. You get in your possession the passbook and the ATM card.  You leave the account with 100 pesos and without notifying the account holder when you do your transaction. You then use your ATM card to withdraw money here in the Philippines.

They can't scam you as you are leaving just 100 pesos balance. And they would not know if and when you made your transaction.

[Gas]

You can open an account with Philippine National Bank from within the UK. It can be used for transferring small to large amounts to a PNB account in the Philippines.

 

http://www.pnb.com.ph/europe/

[Ruddy_Rooster]

Thanks for the replies, especially to Gas for the link, I will take a look at that soon.  Much appreciated.

 

Chris49, yes just to transfer money to myself, preferably funded via paypal while still in UK and maybe Phils at a later date..

[Gentleman.Jack.Darby]

On 5/15/2016 at 6:53 AM, Ruddy_Rooster said:

Hi all.  Apologies for being lazy as it's probably in the forum somewhere but is it possible to open a basic Filipino bank account from within the UK and if so, where do I start?

 

Also while I'm here (but understand it might require a new thread), is my UK based paypal account usable in Phils?  If so I assume there would be no problems transferring funds to a Filipino bank account?

I'm an American living in the U.S. and I have been looking into the PayPal issue in anticipation of a permanent retire move to, most likely, the Philippines, Thailand, or Malaysia.

From reviewing PayPal's "Help" documentation, the rules regarding PayPal accounts are surprisingly uniform throughout the countries in which it operates.

The short answer to using one's home country Paypal account in the PI is "not really" for a couple of reasons, the major reason being that one can't add a "foreign" bank to one's home-country PayPal account. For example, I have a U.S.-based PayPal account with a verified U.S. bank account - I can't add a PI bank account to my U.S. PayPal account.

The other part of "not really" is that, **BY PAYPAL'S RULES** (and we all know rules are made to be broken) a person is allowed to have **ONE** personal account and **ONE** business account and one is **SUPPOSED** to have a legitimate business if one sets up a business account.

I have read that what some people do is when they move to another country is that they set up a PayPal account in that country, eg; the Philippines, by using Paypal's website for that country.

All that PayPal requires to set up an account is a **UNIQUE**, as far as PayPal is concerned, e-mail address, so setting up more than one PayPal account isn't hard. However, in order to **USE** a PayPal account, there has to be some method of paying, if one is buying, or getting one's payments, if one is selling or transferring. So, if one is buying one needs, at a minimum, a debit or credit card; if one is selling or transferring money, one needs a bank account in the country in which one's PayPal account "exists", ie; the Philippines, in order to get money.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence on the internet that suggests, at least from the perspective of the writers of such things, that PayPal is "arbitrary" and "capricious" in placing holds on PayPal balances and/or cancelling PayPal accounts for "no reason" - Make of that what you will.

I would expect that Paypal's internal controls would promptly flag anyone that tried to use the same debit or credit card for an account in, for example, the U.S. and a "different" account in the PI.

As for bank accounts, I would think there is more latitude; ie; even if the name on a U.S. PayPal account and a PI PayPal account were the same or substantially similar, both the e-mail addresses and the bank information would be different by definition because each e-mail address **MUST** be unique and banking details differ from country to country.

It is my opinion that setting up a PayPal account in the PI, using a PI bank, would not, in-and-of-itself, "raise any flags" and the bank account would probably be easily "verified" through PayPal.

The problem that I see is if that transfers were made from a U.S. PayPal account to a PI PayPal account and the "owners" of those accounts had substantially the same names (I would expect that one's PI bank account would use one's full name as on one's passport as opposed to just first name, middle initial, last name, as is commonly done in the U.S.), PayPal's internal control would, sooner or later, flag those accounts and do undesirable things to both accounts.

I think a more prudent thing to do, if one is going to have both a PayPal account in one's home country and the PI, is to have a friend or family member transfer from their PayPal account to one's PI PayPal account.

PayPal has a feature that allows, and seems to encourage "personal" payment's among it's users for things like settling a restaurant bill, sending money for living expenses, etc. and that applies to country-to-country transfer as well.

The other great thing about PayPal is that the cost to transfer **USD** from one country to most others is that the cost is only **0.5 PERCENT**, that is, USD 5 on a USD 1,000 transfer.

If PayPal performs a currency exchange, for example, from USD to PHP, their rates are **LOUSY**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[robert k]

3 hours ago, Gentleman.Jack.Darby said:

 

The other great thing about PayPal is that the cost to transfer **USD** from one country to most others is that the cost is only **0.5 PERCENT**, that is, USD 5 on a USD 1,000 transfer.

If PayPal performs a currency exchange, for example, from USD to PHP, their rates are **LOUSY**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or you could just send Western Union from your US bank to an agent location or Philippine bank account for USD $2.99 for up to $2,999. It says it might take three days but I usually get a text to pick the money up in 15 minutes.

[PeterC]

BPI offer a Star Account with their BPI Europe and its located in London. Supposedly for UK residents in Sterling and you need proof of residency to open it. Gas account, electric bill etc. When you move here you can open a sterling account where u can drop in UK cheques that clear in about a month and another peso account with permanent visa to be shown.  BPI have their own Forex department and have always given me a good exchange rate. I can see all my accounts on line and do Forex movements that are almost instant.  BPI also have what they call "Preferred clients" that get priority treatment in branches ....can be nice!

[Huggybearman]

On 15/05/2016 at 2:53 PM, Ruddy_Rooster said:

Also while I'm here (but understand it might require a new thread), is my UK based paypal account usable in Phils?  If so I assume there would be no problems transferring funds to a Filipino bank account?

My UK Paypal account has never worked in the Philippines. I have tried several times to use it for purchases on Lazada but it has always come up with an errror message so I guess it is not possible.

You might be able to use it to fund a Philippines account from the UK, I have never tried that. I always use my UK banks SWIFT transfer facility which always arrives in my Phils account the next business day.

Ken