The first concern I had about moving to the Philippines was, How do I get to my money in America?
In the Philippines the currency is the "peso". Exchange rates go up and down but in general you get about 50 Philippine pesos to 1 US dollar. They subdivide the peso into 100 centavos, but these are almost never used. A peso is worth 2 cents. A centavo is worth about 1/50 of cent, such a small amount that it's almost useless. Most prices are just rounded off to the nearest peso.
As I write this, exchange rates are bouncing around 54 to 57 pesos to the dollar. But I generally think of it as just 50, because that makes it easier to do conversions in my head. I can divide by 50 in my head. Dividing by 54.3 in your head is hard. Note that most mechanisms for exchanging modest amounts of money don't give you the full exchange rate. If, say, you are using a service to transfer money from the US to the Philippines and the current exchange rate is 55, they may actually give you 53. I presume they make their money on the difference.
There are 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1000 peso bills. Note that largest bill is 1000 pesos, which is the equivalent of about $20. Bills come in different colors so they're pretty easy to tell apart. 1000 is blue, 500 is yellow, 200 is green, 100 is purple, and 50 is red. There are coins for 1, 5, 10, and 20 pesos. Somewhere along the line I got a 25 centavo coin. Personally I find the coins hard to tell apart without looking for the number engraved on them. Just to make things more confusing, there are older coins still in circulation that look different from the newer coins. There are no bills smaller than 20 pesos. For smaller amounts, you use coins.
Prices in the Philippines are generally about half what you would pay in the US, after applying this 50-to-1 exchange rate. But of course there's a lot of variation to that. Rent is very low compared to the US. I'm presently renting a 3 bedroom, 2 bath townhouse for $460 per month. For that price in Los Angleles you might get a cardboard box under a bridge. But electronics costs more in the Philippines than in the US. Like a laptop that you might buy in the US for $500 will cost 50,000 pesos in the Philippines, or $1000. Partly this is a matter of supply and demand, partly shipping costs for imported products, and partly tax structures.
There's a symbol for "peso", like a dollar sign: ₱. That's not on most keyboards, so people often just use a capital "P". Like to write "200 pesos" they'll put "P200". Sometimes they'll put PHP, for "PHilippines Peso".
So all that said ...
One very good piece of advice I got before moving here is: Don't have just one way to get to your money. Like suppose you have a bank account in the US. You come to the Philippines with your ATM card. Your card will work in Filipino ATMs, so you're good, right? Well, no. What happens when your card expires? WIll you be able to get a new one from the bank in time, considering mailing times to the Philippines? What if there's some kind of problem with your ATM card, like the bank puts a hold on it for suspicious transactions or something? I've heard horror stories of westerners who got really stuck because they had plenty of money in the bank back home, but no way to get it here.
So personally, I arranged to have many ways to get to my money. I have 3 credit cards. I have 2 checking accounts with ATM cards. I have a GCash account -- which I will explain in a moment. And I have 2 ways to transfer money to my girlfriend's bank account. I plan to open a Filipino bank account soon, but I don't have that yet. So I have 8 ways to get money over here. Even if 7 of them failed, I could get along.
I think it's a good idea to keep a modest amount of cash in your home. One could debate this endlessly. I wouldn't want to keep tens of thousands of dollars, because then I'd worry about being robbed. But I think it makes sense to keep enough to get by for two weeks or so, so if, say, the ATM network goes down, you have some cash to live on. (I've never seen a situation where ALL the ATMs are down, but it could happen.),
There are ATMs all over the country. I haven't had trouble finding one even in the most backwater places. You'll find ATMs in every bank and every shopping mall.
My American ATM cards have worked fine in every ATM I've tried them in.
But warning: If you use an ATM card from a foreign bank, the bank that owns the ATM charges a P250 ($5) fee. (That may vary among banks but every time I've done it it's been the same amount.) And your own bank may charge a "not our ATM" fee, plus on top of that they may charge you a fee for currency conversion. So if you're planning to visit frequently or move here, find a bank that charges minimal fees. Personally I have an account with Schwab which not only charges no ATM fees but actually refunds me the 250 peso fee from the local bank. I also have an account with Fifth Third but they charged me hefty fees, about $15 to make a $200 withdrawal.
ATMs here generally limit you to withdrawing a maximum of 10,000 peso ($200) in one transaction. But I've found that I can put my card right back in and make another P10,000 withdrawal immediately. Once I made 3 withdrawals in a row for 10,000, 10,000, and 5,000 with no problem. If there's a "daily limit", I don't know what it is. I found that the ATMs at the Manila airport let me withdraw more at one shot -- I think I withdrew P25,000 -- but those are the only ones I've seen that let me take out more than 10,000.
When you first arrive in the Philippines, the best way to get local currency is to withdraw money from an ATM at the airport. YOu get a better exchange rate then you get at a money changing booth. On my first trip I tried to find a place in America to get Philippine pesos before I left and couln't find one that would work for me. So I arrived with no local currency in my pocket, which I found a little scary. But it was easy to get money from an ATM at the airport, so this turned out to be a non-issue. Since then, I've always made sure I had about P10,000 in local currency before I left and then I brought that back on the next trip, so I had some usable currency in my pocket. Side note: There used to be a limit that you could only take 10,000 pesos in cash out of the country. They've increased the limit to 50,000. Note that's equivalent to about $1,000 US, so not a huge amount of money. But enough that if you couldn't get money from the ATM for some reason, you'd still have enough for taxi fare and lunch or whatever.
I suggest having at least two bank accounts in your home country with ATM cards for each. So if there's a problem with one, you can use the other. Recently I had a problem where I thought my ATM card wasn't working. Turned out I had just gotten confused and was using the PIN for my other ATM card, but whatever. You could have a case where your card is blocked or expired. Have two.
Many places in the Philippines do not accept credit cards. Most stores in the malls do, as wells as hotels and airlines. But small shops generally don't. So be prepared to pay cash. I carry around more cash than I did in the US, where I paid for almost everything with credit cards.
While I've never had a problem with my credit cards at stores, I've found that many on-line services do not accept American credit cards. And from the other end, many American credit cards will throw up "suspicious transaction alerts" if you try to use your card in the Philippines. Some banks require you to notify them that you will be travelling and where. Others will call you or send you text messages when you use your card overseas to confirm the transaction. I regularly get text messages saying suspicious transaction and I have to respond to the text or call them to get it to go through.
Something at least some credit card companies have started doing is co-ordinating with on-line vendors to require verification through your cell phone. Like just yesterday I bought a plane ticket from Philippine Airlines on their web site. I paid for it with an American credit card. A screen popped up saying that my credit card company would send a code to my cell phone and I must then type this code in to the web page. After I typed in the code, they went back to processing the purchase. So apparently the airline and the credit card company have worked something out where they interrupt the transaction process to do this verification. I've gotten this on two different credit cards so it's not just the one bank, it's something spreading across the industry.
When you make a credit card purchase, they often ask if you want your card billed in pesos or dollars. That is, you can let your credit card company do the currency conversion, or you can let the store do the currency conversion. I've found that I get a better exchange rate if I let the credit card company do the conversion, but that might depend on your credit card.
If you move here, consider getting a GCash account. This is an account that is tied to your cell phone. It's not credit -- you have to deposit money to the account before you can spend it.
Many smaller stores don't accept credit cards but do accept GCash. On-line vendors often don't accept American credit cards but do accept GCash. You can pay many of your bills, like your water bill or electric bill, with GCash.
There are at least two catches to GCash:
Opening a GCash account is easy. Download the GCash app to your phone. On Android, it's in the app store, I assume something similar on Apple. Then open the app and it will walk you through the process of creating an account. It took me maybe 10 minutes.
Verifying your account (as I mentioned above) is only slightly more difficult. Click the "verify" button. You will be prompted to take a picture of your ID. They accept a US passport. Then they'll prompt you to take a selfie. I had a little trouble with this part: They say to take off anything obscuring your face such as a mask or glasses, and then center your face in the oval. When I took off my glasses, my eyesight is really bad so if I held the phone far enough away that my face would fit in the oval, I couldn't see it. I stumbled through that but then I couldn't read the instructions that said to blink your eyes. (I guess that helps them identify your face, or maybe to make sure you're not holding up a picture of someone else.) It took me quite a few tries before I realized they were displaying text I couldn't read on the screen and moving it up so I could read it. Then I tried again, centering my face in the oval, and then just constantly blinking my eyes until they accepted the picture. They say that once you submit the verification it may take 7 days for them to approve, but in fact they approved mine within an hour. (I suspect that many routine submissions are handled by computer and go through automatically, but sometimes there's a problem requiring human intervention. Just guessing.)
There are several ways to deposit money to your GCash account. There are many locations where you can deposit cash. I've only done this once but I went to an SM grocery store in the mall and they had a booth for it. You can tie your GCash account to several Filipino banks. I don't have a Filipino bank account yet so I haven't tried this. You can transfer money from a US bank account or credit or debit card through certain on-line services. I use remitly.com. If you transfer from a debit card there is no fee. (They don't quite give you the full exchange rate -- I presume they make their money on the difference.) Usually this happens while you wait, in maybe 5 minutes, and then the money is there. Sometimes there's a delay because of issues connecting between the two computer systems or whatever. Worst I've had was about 12 hours for my money to show up. So don't rely on being able to transfer instantly, but usually you can.
I have yet to use my GCash account at a store, so I don't know the details of how it works. The stores have QR codes -- those square blocaks of black and white checkerboard -- and there's a QR button in the GCash app, so I guess you press the QR button and then scan the QR code. If someone out there has done this and knows how it works, please share.
Mostly I use GCash with on-line services. The first time you say you want to pay with GCash they take you through a procedure to "link" the service to GCash. Just follow the instructions on the screen, it's not hard and it only takes a few minutes. If you're accessing the on-line service from somewhere other than your phone, have your phone handy as you'll need it. From then on you just select GCash as the payment method and everything happens smoothly.
You can use GCash to add load to your phone. There's a menu pick for that. Basically you give the phone number. I've added load to my own phone and to my girlfriend's with no trouble.
You can use GCash to pay utility bills. There's a button for that too. You'll have to pick which utility company from a menu and specify the amount. That's about it.
I have read postings on the Internet where Americans say that their American bank closed their account when they moved to the Philippines, that they won't carry an account for someone with a foreign address. I haven't had a problem with this. Perhaps it depends on the bank. I signed up with a forwarding service so I have a US address. I don't live there, it's a private post office box, but maybe that helps.
I updated my address with every bank I work with. I did all of these on line. I gave them all the forwarding service address. One had a check box on the form to say that this was not my residence. I checked that box. I expected them to then ask for my residence, but they didn't.
One credit card company had places for "mailing address" and "residence address". There was no way to enter a foreign address -- no place to give a country, required you to select a US state from a dropdown, etc. So I called them and they said yes, you couldn't enter a foreign address on the web page but they could take it over the phone. So I gave them my Philippines address and there was no apparent problem.
Amusing side note: One bank that I called, I told them I was now living in the Philippines, and it turned out the customer service person was in the Philippines -- apparently the bank contracts out their customer service to the Philippines. So we had a nice little chat about the country and she wished me well!
Foreigners cannot generally open a bank account at a Filipino bank. You have to have a local ID and a local address.
That said, I recently saw an advertisement on the Internet from a Filipino bank saying a foreigner could open an account on line just by uploading a picture of their passport. So I guess this is bank policy and not a law.
Once you've been in the Philippines for more than one month you have to get an "alien certificate of registration", or ACR card. (I think these should have a picture of a flying saucer on it, but no.) There are different types of ACR card. If you're here on a tourist visa your ACR probably won't enable you to open a bank account. You need a permanent residency visa. If you have a retiree visa you get a different kind of ID.
There are on-line services to let you transfer money between a US bank and a Filipino bank. Of course this only helps you if you have a Filipino bank account. Personally I have a Filipina girlfriend that I can send money to -- and I trust her enough that I don't think she'll just run off with my money. There are several on-line services that let you move money from a US bank account to a Filipino bank account almost instantly. I use wise.com. Another big one is remitly.com. When I was checking this out, I found that Wise gave me a better exchange rate but charged higher fees. The difference was small but I suppose will add up if you move a lot of money around. Note that Remitly can send money to a GCash account while Wise can't. But it's easy enough to open accounts with both. There are no annual fees, just fees every time you make a transaction.
I'm told that social security checks can be direct-deposited to a Filipino bank account, but I haven't tried this. If social security can do it, I presume businesses can do it.
Paper checks are rarely used in the Philippines these days. I've heard of landlords asking for postdated checks to pay the rent. That is, if you sign a 12 month lease, they want you to give them 12 checks, dated, say, January, February, March, etc. Personally I'd be reluctant to do this but whatever. I've never tried to use a check here so I can't say much about it.
I use credit cards for bigger purchases, cash for smaller purchases and at small stores, and GCash for online purchases.
I am retired and I have two sources of income: Social security, and regular payments from two retirement accounts. Right now I have all those deposited into US banks. I have two more non-retirement investment accounts that I occasionally withdraw money from and have deposited to a US bank.
I spend some money with credit cards, I pay the bills on-line from one of my US accounts.
I regularly withdraw money from my US accounts at ATMs, usually at the mall.
I send some money from a US bank account to my GCash account using Remitly.
Occasionally, I send money from a US account to my girlfriend's bank account using Wise.
© 2023 by Jay Johansen
Jay Johansen May 15, 2024
Since writing this, I have opened a Filipino bank account. I now have a retiree visa (SRRV). At the bank I showed them my passport and my SRRV ID. It was a join account with my Filipina wife. I thought it was amusing that they asked me how much her "allowance" was. Apparently I could give a limit on how much she could withdraw each month. I can't imagine an American bank having such a policy. The only catch to opening the account was that at that time we had not yet been able to get an ID card for my wife with her married name, so we had to open the account with her maiden name on it. (It takes months to get IDs updated in the Philippines.) Now I regularly move money from my American bank account to my Filipino bank account with Wise.
Oh, and by the way, since I wrote this original post, now Wise can transfer money to a GCash account.