Good bank for an expat in the Philippines?

[Snowy79]

5 hours ago, Shady said:

ha, there's nothing basic about Premier, it's one of the best bank accounts if not the best, but those requirements,  $75,000 minimum balance?

Having a blonde moment.  It's the advance account I have. 

[Shady]

3 hours ago, Snowy79 said:

 It's the advance account I have. 

Your UK was Advance, and then your new PH was another Advance?   

I have a US HSBC account that isn't Advance, I'm wondering if I open an Advance in PH, will they be able to link,  will they even be able to see it and use my address on it like they did with yours. If not, hopefully I can upgrade the US account to Advance.

[Snowy79]

8 hours ago, Shady said:

Your UK was Advance, and then your new PH was another Advance?   

I have a US HSBC account that isn't Advance, I'm wondering if I open an Advance in PH, will they be able to link,  will they even be able to see it and use my address on it like they did with yours. If not, hopefully I can upgrade the US account to Advance.

Yes my UK account was also an advance and straight forward to set up. Linked in seconds. 

[Shady]

On 10/2/2020 at 8:12 PM, Snowy79 said:

Yes my UK account was also an advance and straight forward to set up. Linked in seconds. 

Was the PH account a peso account or your home currency? Apparently there are restrictions if you open a peso account and you want to make global transfers.

 

 

[Snowy79]

17 hours ago, Shady said:

Was the PH account a peso account or your home currency? Apparently there are restrictions if you open a peso account and you want to make global transfers.

 

 

I have a pound and a peso account in the Philippines.  I send Sterling instantly from the UK to my Sterling account in the Philippines.  I get a debt card for that account and can withdraw from most banks with no charges but I lose about 1 peso in the pound.  I watch the exchange rate and when I'm happy I message the bank to move the Sterling into peso in my current account.  I lose about 1/4 of a peso that way and I also have a debit card which I can withdraw for free.  It takes one to two working days to do that exchange. Sometimes I win sometimes I lose as the exchange rate may change before my money converts.

I lost over 1m peso on a massive rate change about 4 yrs ago. I had been sitting with the profits of a house sale in my UK account and the rate had been hovering around 59 to 61 peso for a while with rumours of the pound crashing.  I made a mental agreement if it hit 63 peso I'd exchange to buy a condo here. About a month later it hit 63 peso so I transferred, it hit just over 64 by the time it changed so I was happy.  One week later it hit over 69.  Only for a few days though before dropping again to about 63. 

Edited October 9, 2020 by Snowy79

[Shady]

On 10/9/2020 at 9:35 AM, Snowy79 said:

I have a pound and a peso account in the Philippines.  I send Sterling instantly from the UK to my Sterling account in the Philippines.  I get a debt card for that account and can withdraw from most banks with no charges but I lose about 1 peso in the pound.  I watch the exchange rate and when I'm happy I message the bank to move the Sterling into peso in my current account.  I lose about 1/4 of a peso that way and I also have a debit card which I can withdraw for free.  It takes one to two working days to do that exchange.

So moving funds from the PH pound to the PH peso account cannot be done on the website, and cannot be done instantly, you have to message (email?) the branch and then wait a day or two?

Is there anything you can do with the peso account - pay PH bills, ATM peso withdrawal, transfer funds to PH bank, etc - that you can't do with the pound account?

[Mike J]

On 10/9/2020 at 9:35 AM, Snowy79 said:

I lost over 1m peso on a massive rate change about 4 yrs ago.

Not a really a loss, but rather missed an opportunity for further gain.  But it would still sting.   

[Mike J]

1 hour ago, Shady said:

So moving funds from the PH pound to the PH peso account cannot be done on the website, and cannot be done instantly, you have to message (email?) the branch and then wait a day or two?

Is there anything you can do with the peso account - pay PH bills, ATM peso withdrawal, transfer funds to PH bank, etc - that you can't do with the pound account?

We have both a peso account and a dollar account with BPI.  You can move dollars into the peso account via the web.  You can also pay many bills using the peso account via the web.   One minor complaint, at least for BPI, is that you can only move the dollars to peso during business hours.  I expect it may be related to fluctuations in the exchange rate during the day, but that is just a guess.

[Snowy79]

10 hours ago, Shady said:

So moving funds from the PH pound to the PH peso account cannot be done on the website, and cannot be done instantly, you have to message (email?) the branch and then wait a day or two?

Is there anything you can do with the peso account - pay PH bills, ATM peso withdrawal, transfer funds to PH bank, etc - that you can't do with the pound account?

I predominantly use my peso account, there are lots of companies that you can pay online direct from the account and 99.9% of ATM's are free to use. To be honest I've only ever used the pound account a few times.  You can use the pound ATM card and still draw out peso but at a slightly lower exchange rate. Another means to pay most companies and individuals even load phones is to use GCASH. Download the App and it's like a virtual bank.  You can go into many places and give them money which they will load onto your virtual GCASH.  Then if you want to pay bills use GCASH, if you load someone's phone you usually get a 5 peso rebate instead of having to pay the loader a few peso to do it.

[Shady]

47 minutes ago, Snowy79 said:

I predominantly use my peso account, there are lots of companies that you can pay online direct from the account and 99.9% of ATM's are free to use. To be honest I've only ever used the pound account a few times.  You can use the pound ATM card and still draw out peso but at a slightly lower exchange rate. Another means to pay most companies and individuals even load phones is to use GCASH. Download the App and it's like a virtual bank.  You can go into many places and give them money which they will load onto your virtual GCASH.  Then if you want to pay bills use GCASH, if you load someone's phone you usually get a 5 peso rebate instead of having to pay the loader a few peso to do it.

I'd love to use the peso account, the problem is all the funds are in the PH USD account, and I get an error when attempting to move money on the website from that account to the PH Peso account. Is that even possible to do?