Transferring Money to The Philippines

It’s no accident that transferring money to the Philippines is so easy.  Almost any English speaking country you go to worldwide….you’ll find overseas Filipinos a significant segment of the work force.  And they all regularly send part of their income home every pay period.

That’s right.  The primary reason Filipinos go overseas to work is to support their families.  It doesn’t cost much to live in the Philippines but, truth be known, good paying jobs are hard to come by.  Yet many Filipinos do have valuable skills and if they can market those skills abroad it gives them a chance to transferring money to the Philippines.

Some of the countries that have large amounts of Filipino overseas workers are the US, Canada, UK, and Australia.  Those of course are the largest English speaking countries.  Since Filipinos are raised with English as their second language, it’s natural that they would gravitate toward those countries for work opportunities.  Every payday, you’ll see them queing at the ‘money transfer’ shops transferring money to the Philippines.

Because they’re not used to expensive life styles back in their own country, they’re usually able to save a large percentage of their overseas earnings.  This means they’re transferring large amounts of money to the Philippines every month.

Yes, transferring money to the Philippines every month is part of their overseas experience.  Back home, the money makes a big difference to the families who receive it too.  And of course, when they transfer money to the Philippines, it enriches the Philippine economy in other ways too.

Back home that money goes for food, clothes for the kids (Filipinos like big families), education costs and sometimes a little fun too.  These overseas bread winners are highly appreciated for transferring money to the Philippines regularly.

Many overseas Filipino workers use the services of international money remittance companies for transferring money to the Philippines.  They could do it online but more often than not they don’t have the local bank accounts required to do it that way.

Whereas most Americans use the online services, the Filipinos like the ‘money remittance shop’ just fine.  They’re accustomed to dealing with ‘cash’ and things that they can see.  They get paid in cash, they take it to their local agency, they use that service for transferring money to the Philippines…..and they spend the rest locally.  It’s a pretty simple routine.

 

 

 

Multiple Ways of Transferring Money to the Philippines

Transferring money to the Philippines isn’t hard at all. In fact there are multiple ways of doing it.

The old fashioned way is a bank-to-bank transfer of funds. This is usually the method for transferring very large sums of money to the Philippines such as medium and larger companies would do. This way, however, isn’t the way that most consumers use nowadays in transferring money to the Philippines.

Most people, i.e. the average Filipino, only want to transfer a few hundred dollars or less back home. They need something that involves a minimum of paperwork, little expense, and can happen fast. For them the new breed on remittance services transferring money to the Philippines is the perfect answer.

They can use the totally online approach or the totally offline approach.

The totally online way of wiring money to the Philippines is by using one of the online services that requires hook-up with your bankcard. As long as you’ve got money in your bank account, you just go to the money remittance site, log in, tell it how much money you want to send, to whom, press a button and that’s it.

The only limitation of that method for some people is what if the sender doesn’t have a computer, or a bankcard, or even a bank account? The same thing for the receiver, what if they don’t have any of those things?

Not to worry! There is a way of transferring money to the Philippines. There are companies who specialize in working through local agents (i.e. shops) who accept and disburse money, sort of like a little bank.

These shops are part of unique networks of local agents. Many of these companies have global presence too. You can do money transfer to the Philippines from the US, Germany, Nigeria or just about anywhere else.

To use this kind of service of transferring money to the Philippines you don’t need to have a computer because the shop takes care of the transmittal. And you don’t need a bank account either because you can give the agent the cash. Once you get a receipt, you know the transaction is safe and guaranteed.

This kind of service for transferring money to the Philippines is perfect for getting money into the hands of people in developing countries like the Philippines where so many people live rurally and don’t have bank accounts or computers.

Transferring Money to the Philippines

Sometimes money is needed someplace other than where it’s earned. For the thousands of Filipino overseas workers, such is the time for transferring money to the Philippines.

The Filipino diaspora is large and worldwide. Although the Philippines is a beautiful country, the fact is that each year thousands of Filipinos seek and find opportunities to go abroad to work. Each payday they take what they need to get by locally and for the remainder there’s a huge transfer of money to the Philippines.

As the world economy has developed it seems that there’s sometimes more money in certain areas than workers. Such labor-to-capital disparities mean opportunities of for working abroad for those willing to do so.  Since Filipinos who work abroad are traditionally a frugal culture they tend to save a large portion of their earnings. That’s when they seek ways to send money back to the Philippines.

For most of them, traditional options for moving money back home are not practical. In many cases they don’t have local bank accounts.  They deal strictly in cash on a daily basis. They need other means of transferring money to the Philippines.

The new breed of services for transferring money around the world fits their needs perfectly. They generally have two choices. If they do have some kind of local bank account they can use a variety of online companies for transferring money back to the Philippines.

That’s fairly easy. Some identification information, some addresses for verification, an email address as a means of notification and specifying the amount of money. That’s all that’s required in transferring money to the Philippines by online means.

Another way (and in some cases more practical) is for them to use a local agent to handle the transaction.  Some money remittance services work this way. In these cases transferring money to the Philippines is as easy as going to the post office.

All the persons wishing to send money have to find one of the local businesses that acts as the ‘local agent’ for the service, walk in, fill out some basic identification and addressing forms, give the agent the actual money (in cash form) and that’s that. Usually the money is transferred that very same day.

The person who sent the money simply waits for verification that the money was received. In the event there’s a problem there is a precise and thorough system of accountability and crosschecks to see what the problem was. Typically the money remittance company that provides the service of transferring money is able to iron out any difficulties satisfactorily and quickly.

The people back home in the Philippines who receive this money often are depending on it in their budget and that’s why only remittance companies who provide superior service survive. Their reputation is dependant of giving consistently good service. If they can give their customers a dependable service for transferring money to the Philippines, they’ll keep their customers for a long, long time.