Navy Federal Credit Union

[clarkee]

Hi! Anyone here on the forum use NFCU?  I have my civil service, military and ss pension DD to my account in the states.  Once I get to the Philippines and once I'm able to open my USD and PP account what is the quickest way to transfer money to the Philippines. I already know about depositing a check to your dollar account and waiting for it to clear.  Using a NFCU debit card to withdraw money from ATM's in the PI can get expensive.  Not only are you hit with a 200-250 peso charge NFCU hits you for another 1% foreign transaction fee of the amount withdrawn.

[Steve & Myrlita]

Hi! Anyone here on the forum use NFCU?  I have my civil service, military and ss pension DD to my account in the states.  Once I get to the Philippines and once I'm able to open my USD and PP account what is the quickest way to transfer money to the Philippines. I already know about depositing a check to your dollar account and waiting for it to clear.  Using a NFCU debit card to withdraw money from ATM's in the PI can get expensive.  Not only are you hit with a 200-250 peso charge NFCU hits you for another 1% foreign transaction fee of the amount withdrawn.

Try checking into Transferwise or Xoom.

[clarkee]

Thanks, yes I already know about the many money transfer services.

[Art, just a re(tired) Fil-Am]

I just sent myself $450 last night to myself to our bank here in the Philippines via Transfer Wise, which will be in our peso checking acct within a few hrs and the service fee was only $7.00 at a good exchange rate. They only deposit the money in pesos.
Most of the time I write U.S. checks for deposit into our Ph local USD account, but there's a 25 days clearing time for the check to clear and post into our account. There is now a $5.00 service fee to deposit ckecks at our local bank, which is no big deal since I only write out checks for deposit once every 2 months.

[clarkee]

Thanks for the info Art!

[bigrod]

The quickest way is the transfer services, but they all cost something.  Some of the services will drop you if you are sending money to yourself and live here versus visiting.  Seen this happen to people using Xoom and WU.  Since I live here I use Transferwise because I am looking for Php at a good rate, normally the transaction fee equals about 1% of the send.  With Transferwise I have found that I can request the transfer a few hours before my money hits my US bank.  PNB has a branch in Los Angeles and you used to be able to open an account there and they would open an account in the Philippines for you.

Chuck

[clarkee]

Thanks for the info Chuck!

[Frosty]

We are in the process of moving in the next year.
We plan to build a house.
Has anyone had any problem with sending more then $10,000 U.S. at one time.
I think to build i'm looking at a $100,000 U.S.

[medic3500]

If you're a vet you should look at USAA as your bank. Been using them for several years now. My Gov't pension is direct deposit to them and I use ATM for withdraw here . They do not charge for ATM withdraw and they also credit your account $15 or 20 (I don't remember which) each month to cover the foreign ATM fees. I use BPI atm as much as possible as they allow 20,000php per draw most of the others only allow 10,000. In theory I can draw $2000 dollars a month at no cost to me except the exchange rate which is competitive. Yes anything over that and you will be charged the 250php fee locally but nothing from USAA. I seldom have to draw more than that and I live just fine. 

[suzukig1]

We are in the process of moving in the next year.
We plan to build a house.
Has anyone had any problem with sending more then $10,000 U.S. at one time.
I think to build i'm looking at a $100,000 U.S.

If you send in more than P500,000 or the equivalent in foreign currency the bank will ask how you are going to use the money.  Answering that it is for a house should be acceptable.  It's due to the PHL anti money laundering rules.