Mr Lee Posted March 14, 2011 Posted March 14, 2011 One of the easiest and quickest ways that I have found to give money to relatives in the Philippines is, to have a bank account in the Philippines, and set up a trusted relative with a bank account linked to our account, or give them one of our ATM cards. While this would take actually being here to set up, it can be done within a weeks time and thereafter it would be very easy, as long as you can afford to keep some of your funds tied up in those accounts. My wife and I use BPI for this purpose but I am sure it can work with other banks as well, but since we only do business with a few banks here, I do not know which would offer the same services as BPI, so feel free to chime in and let us all know if your bank can do the same thing. With BPI we get to know the manager and some of the employees and we can then mail a US check to them and have them deposit it into our account for us (and I put our account number on the back of the check and the words "For deposit only" to make sure it goes only into our account) and we can then watch it online for it to become available. Since my wife and I keep a Philippine phone roaming while out of the country, and since we have been fortunate enough to have made some wonderful friends in the banking business, they are always willing to email or text us back and forth and help us with things such as this, as well as other issues. I also deposit friends checks for them each year when we arrive, so that is another way of getting the checks here instead of the mail, have a friend who travels back and forth, and I am not suggesting me. So with BPI, once you have dollars in your dollar account, and have a linked peso account, then you can go online and pick the day you wish to exchange those dollars for pesos. I do not know if they offer the same service for other currencies but if they do, and if you follow the exchange rate like I usually do, then picking a day with good rates to do the exchange usually works out well for us. Just before coming over this year, I picked a good day which was within the previous months, and then I did an online exchange so we would have pesos to use while we are here, and we also leave extra pesos in the account in order to transfer them online to relatives who can usually get them within minutes of the transfer if they have one of our ATM cards, and hours if they have a BPI account of their own, and that we have linked to ours. When using our atm card, we can lock the minimum balance to prevent the accounts being overdrawn. In the above way it is free but you have to leave a balance to deal with issues, yet there are no other costs or fees, and I have found that the online exchange rate is pretty good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art2ro Posted March 15, 2011 Posted March 15, 2011 No, I don't do any of that anymore, but what I do is, give my wife a monthly allowance and she can do with her money what ever she likes, like sending her sister or relatives money from her monthly allowance and she doesn't even have to tell me about it! Works for me, it's easy, no arguments about money, no headaches and it's stress free! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Call me bubba Posted March 15, 2011 Posted March 15, 2011 :welcome: this is one of the BEST suggestions I have seen on this Forum. I have done something like what Mr.Lee has suggested, So far it has worked out very well. EVERYBODY lets give Mr Lee a :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sampaguita Posted March 16, 2011 Posted March 16, 2011 :yes: this is one of the BEST suggestions I have seen on this Forum. I have done something like what Mr.Lee has suggested, So far it has worked out very well. EVERYBODY lets give Mr Lee a :th_grouphug: Thank you Ed I hug him all the time. hehehehe He has been good to my family too. BPI has been working good for us for about 10 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Lee Posted March 16, 2011 Author Posted March 16, 2011 :yes: this is one of the BEST suggestions I have seen on this Forum. I have done something like what Mr.Lee has suggested, So far it has worked out very well. EVERYBODY lets give Mr Lee a :th_grouphug: Thanks Ed, it is my wish to help as many people as I can by making life easier for them since it can be quite frustrating living here at times. Brain storming and helping others is what this forum is all about IMHO, so I do my best to give helpful info and it is good to know some members appreciate it. I have tried many ways including giving family money to set up an account in a bank close to them and then making deposits into their accounts at a branch close to us, but my being able to watch the money online that is being spent, has saved me money and has taught them to at least try to not waste the money because they know big uncle is watching. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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