Transferred USD, got market fx rate and only .25% fee

[earthdome]

I recently transferred $1000 USD, got a market fx rate of 58.75 and was only charged a .25% fee of 147 php. And it can be very fast taking less than 30 minutes. I have been using this method for over a year and it has been working well for me. It takes a few more steps using two different apps but once you have done it a few times it is easy.

I can post more info if anyone is interested. 

[JJReyes]

Yes.  Please explain your method. It's always great to know alternate ways to send and receive money.

At one time, financial transaction fees were substantial because bank employees had to be involved in the process.  Today, the customer does all the work.  The high fees are no longer necessary, unless of course, the financial institutions are being greedy.  You may recall the time when a stockbroker was needed to buy or sell stocks.  Now you can do everything yourself.

 

[earthdome]

Ok, here goes.

Summary: I use USDC, a 'crypto' stable coin for the USD to transfer USD from the US to a crypto exchange in the Philippines, then fx it to pesos and withdraw it to my philippines bank account. This can take less than 30 minutes.

Details:

I have two accounts. One on coinbase.com in the US and one on coins.ph in the Philippines. I have the apps for both of these installed on my phone.

I link my US bank account to my Coinbase account and then deposit USD from my us bank or credit union account into Coinbase as USDC where you get 1 for 1. 1 USDC for 1 USD. If you deposit USD instead you can still convert it to USDC at 1 to 1 on Coinbase. Before you can withdraw your USDC and send it to Coins.ph you will have to wait like 3-5 business days. Unless you maintain a balance on Coinbase which has been there over 5 days. that you can send immediately. On Coinbase your USDC earns interest at a bit below the T bill rate. Currently 4.7% interest. Note that this money is not insured by FDIC. But Coinbase is a publicly traded business over 10 years old and is the number one US exchange for crypto. Also some of the new bitcoin ETF funds trust Coinbase to hold their bitcoin.

Second you need to create a coins.ph account. Then select to receive USDC, they will ask what network to use for the transfer, select Arbitrium, which doesn't charge any fees for transfers of a few thousand or less. You will be given a crypto address, a long string of letters and numbers. You copy that. Then on Coinbase you withdraw USDC and when asked for an address paste in the address that coins.ph gave you. Within minutes it will arrive at your coins.ph account. Coins.ph has also been around for a while, I think my account was opened 8 years ago. Of course I don't leave much cash on the exchange. My cash usually is just passing through and spends only a short time there.

Once the USDC is at coins.ph you can convert it to php. But I found I can get a better rate if a trade the USDC on the coins.ph exchange for php. You can place either a market of limit order to trade your USDC for php. I have been paying a .25% fee for the trade. Generally this seems to trade close to the mid market rate.

Once you have the USDC converted to php you can transfer that to your ph bank account using InstaPay or PesoNet.

The first few times I did this I only sent $10 or $20 just to make sure I had the process down.

I haven't listed everything step for step but this should give you enough info to try this yourself if you are interested.

Edited Monday at 12:06 PM by earthdome

[JJReyes]

I think I will pass.  It sounds a bit complicated just to reduce fees.  

[Mike J]

11 minutes ago, JJReyes said:

I think I will pass.  It sounds a bit complicated just to reduce fees.  

Me also, will just keep writing the 3 or 4 checks per year.

[earthdome]

2 hours ago, Mike J said:

Me also, will just keep writing the 3 or 4 checks per year.

Of course. What works for me may not be what works best for you. There are many ways to transfer funds. Just adding one more option.