Wise for Money Transfers

[Kano]

  I have been using Xoom to transfer money from my bank directly to my wife's BdO account in the Philippines.  But, I checked their exchange rate lately, and it's P3 lower than the official exchange rate.  They are only exchanging P53 per $1 instead of P56.

  So, I've been looking for other exchange/remittance services, and came across Wise.  I even heard a YouTuber mention this service.

   Has anyone here used it, and is it legitimate?

-Mike

[Hestecrefter]

I have used many different ones over the years - Xoom, WorldRemit, IRemit, and no doubt some I cannot recall.

These days I am using Wise and am content with it.  I use it to send money to myself when I am there.  I don't bring a lot of cash with me.

[Steve & Myrlita]

Yes, I also was using Xoom and the exchange rate was horrible not to mention their transfer fees. I switched to Wise when it was still Transferwise. Much better cost wise. At 1st I thought they took too long to transfer but I since learned through trial and error that as long as you start the transfer before 10 AM Sat PHT or sooner, it usually transfers in 1-2 hours and sometimes faster. The trick is not to start the transfer after that time. If you do, the soonest it will finish is Monday afternoon between 1-3PM PHT. This is due to EST going past midnight Sun night / Mon morning EST. In other words, money doesn't transfer weekends. I think maybe Xoom will transfer but it's costly and should only be done if it's urgent. Just my P2 worth.

[Kano]

Thanks Hestecrefter and Steve,

   I will transfer to funds to my wife's BdO account before we arrive.  Wise has a much better exchange rate and transfer fee than even the local BdO remit center here.

-Mike

[starrt]

Kano,

You can always just use the ATM's to get cash as you need it. I have no idea what exchange rates they use. There is usually a withdrawal limit of 10,000 Php per transaction, and depending on which bank it is, you can do that 5 times for a total of 50,000 Php.
Just keep in mind the transaction fees at both ends.

Thomas

[bigrod]

Been using Wise for a couple years now, best rates I have found.

Using stateside ATM  card is a last resort for me!  If I use it is at an HSBC ATM which allows php 40K or BPI which allows php 20K per withdrawal.  othbanks allow me to withdraw php equal to my card limit of $1500.

Chuck

[Kano]

Chuck,

  Whereas I have to agree, that Wise is the most inexpensive way to transfer money, I just watched a couple of videos this evening explaining their business model.  The mechanics of transferring money through them seems a bit Rube Goldbergish to me.

  I'm an adherent to the Keep It Simple Stupid theory.  If I was to use Wise, to make a bank-to-bank transfer, there are four financial institutions involved.  To me, this increases the likelihood of a glitch.  There are the banks at both ends, Wise's bank, and then I need a means to transfer money from my bank to Wise's bank here in the U.S., in which, I believe I'd have to use Zelle.

  It's not undoable, and probably bottom line I'd profit by all of these financial gymnastics, but I'm a bit squeamish when my hard earned has to pass through this many financial institutions.

  With Xoom, you establish a link, via PayPal now that I think about it, to fund the account with your bank, then provide the details of your recipient's bank account.  What I like is that they maintain a database of all of the financial information of your recipients.

  Now that I've typed out this post, I guess the only objection I have to Wise, is having to manual do the transfers between my bank in the U.S. and Wise's bank.  After the first transfer, does it get simpler?

-Mike

[JoeLP]

Worldremit is what I am currently using.

[bigrod]

Chuck,

  Whereas I have to agree, that Wise is the most inexpensive way to transfer money, I just watched a couple of videos this evening explaining their business model.  The mechanics of transferring money through them seems a bit Rube Goldbergish to me.

  I'm an adherent to the Keep It Simple Stupid theory.  If I was to use Wise, to make a bank-to-bank transfer, there are four financial institutions involved.  To me, this increases the likelihood of a glitch.  There are the banks at both ends, Wise's bank, and then I need a means to transfer money from my bank to Wise's bank here in the U.S., in which, I believe I'd have to use Zelle.

  It's not undoable, and probably bottom line I'd profit by all of these financial gymnastics, but I'm a bit squeamish when my hard earned has to pass through this many financial institutions.

  With Xoom, you establish a link, via PayPal now that I think about it, to fund the account with your bank, then provide the details of your recipient's bank account.  What I like is that they maintain a database of all of the financial information of your recipients.

  Now that I've typed out this post, I guess the only objection I have to Wise, is having to manual do the transfers between my bank in the U.S. and Wise's bank.  After the first transfer, does it get simpler?

-Mike

My BoA and BDO accounts are loaded on Wise. From the wise screen I choose ACH transfer from my  BoA account and that is it.

Chuck

[codefreeze]

My other half has been using Wise for quite some time now (a few years at least I think). She swears by it and uses it pretty much all the time. She only ever transfers money to Phils now using Wise. She also has some kind of Wise contactless card with it I believe which she uses all the time here (UK) too. She likes the way you can top it up with a certain amount. I will check the details with her and report back, but I've only ever heard her say good things about Wise. By the way, it used to be called TransferWise, and she was using it back then too.

[RUFUS]

I have been using XOOM for years now.
XOOM is now owned by PayPal so it can link directly to your account(if you have one) and transfers are instant.
We send USD so they can pick it up and get the best current exchange rate.
We also send to our bank on occasion, but they DO have a crappy exchange rate to Pisos.

Here is the fee comparison to Wise .
I did not see an option to send USD so I went with Pisos so you can see the difference in fees.
I do see that Wise has a good exchange rate , but the fees are higher.

[Gray Wolf]

Don't tell XOOM but I've been sending money to my family for years and paying only $4.99 per transfer.    Attached is a sample transfer I just mocked up to show the rates. According to XE.com today's exchange rate is 56.82 php per $1. In my make believe transfer the exchange rate is 54.48 a difference of 2.34 pisos.
I don't send the money to a bank, as most of my family doesn't have a bank. Instead I send it so they can pickup their pisos at any BDO Unibank, Cebuana Lhuillier, LBC, Metrobank, M. Lhuillier or The SM Store. They usually pick up at the closest Lhuillier for concenvience sake. As far as speed of transfer, I have on a few occasions sent money and they picked up their pisos all within 10 minutes, total.
Far in the past we sent money transfers bank to bank. It took days if not more than a week. And the local bank at that time charged a rather large fee, which the family had to pay.
I'll stick with XOOM unless or until I have a good reason to set up a new account with someone else.  YMMV

[bigrod]

Don't tell XOOM but I've been sending money to my family for years and paying only $4.99 per transfer.    Attached is a sample transfer I just mocked up to show the rates. According to XE.com today's exchange rate is 56.82 php per $1. In my make believe transfer the exchange rate is 54.48 a difference of 2.34 pisos.
I don't send the money to a bank, as most of my family doesn't have a bank. Instead I send it so they can pickup their pisos at any BDO Unibank, Cebuana Lhuillier, LBC, Metrobank, M. Lhuillier or The SM Store. They usually pick up at the closest Lhuillier for concenvience sake. As far as speed of transfer, I have on a few occasions sent money and they picked up their pisos all within 10 minutes, total.
Far in the past we sent money transfers bank to bank. It took days if not more than a week. And the local bank at that time charged a rather large fee, which the family had to pay.
I'll stick with XOOM unless or until I have a good reason to set up a new account with someone else.  YMMV

           
Just looked at Wise rate php 56.825., for $1000 not $1004.99 I get php 56306.76.

Chuck

[JoeLP]

I just checked worldremit.  The exchange right now would be P55.46 to $1 USD.  The fee is only $3.99.  The drawback is they limit their transfers to P50K.  So that is something you need to deal with.  Many of us need to do 2 transfers a month due to that.  And like xoom(which I used up until paypal bought them. I am not a fan of paypal) the money is available in minutes.  You can send it from your account for free(no fee), but it takes a few days to process.  Tina wasn't happy about that. 

[Gray Wolf]

To keep my question simple, if I were to use Wise, where can the money be picked up in the PH?