US banks in the Philippines

[Johnny C]

Hello everyone, Is Citibank the largest and most popular American bank in the PI?   Are there other large banks operating in the PI as well such as Chase or Bank of America? Do the American banks charge an exchange fee as well? 

[Sander Martin]

Citibank seems to be only limited to Cebu and Manila. I have never seen their ATMs (even in Cebu). JPMorgan only (i think) has call centers here (my fiance used to work for them). I think your better off getting a local account here in The Philippines and transfering money with some online transfer services like Transferwise. They will give you a much better exchange rates then any banks will ever give you.

 

[Dave Hounddriver]

Here is a link to all the banks that operate in Philippines.  I think you will find that there are not many American banks here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banks_in_the_Philippines#List_of_major_universal_and_commercial_banks

[robert k]

11 hours ago, Johnny C said:

Hello everyone, Is Citibank the largest and most popular American bank in the PI?   Are there other large banks operating in the PI as well such as Chase or Bank of America? Do the American banks charge an exchange fee as well? 

If Chase has a bank there I don't think they do ordinary accounts. I banked with Chase and I had choice of using Chinabank, Allied bank or Metro bank ATM. I'm going to keep the Chase account but set up an account with another bank for redundancy or possibly set up brokerage account with a no fee debit card and they refund foreign ATM fees.

[Gentleman.Jack.Darby]

On 6/21/2016 at 8:22 AM, Johnny C said:

Hello everyone, Is Citibank the largest and most popular American bank in the PI?   Are there other large banks operating in the PI as well such as Chase or Bank of America? Do the American banks charge an exchange fee as well? 

I am an American, so I'm looking at this from an American perspective.

I have not actually done this yet since I'm in the US planning for retirement and moving to the PI within the next 8 - 12 months.

I would suggest taking a good look at Citibank.

Although Citibank USA and Citibank Philippines are "different" banks because of their respective countries' banking regulations, Citibank has something 
called "Global Transfers" that allows a customer to move money from a Citibank account in one country, eg; the USA to a Citibank account in another 
country, eg; the Philippines.

The Global Transfers is part of Citibank's online banking, so I don't think a customer would have to deal with bank personnel or fill out paperwork to make a transfer.

Citibank Philippines allows a customer to have both a U.S. dollar account and a Philippine peso account.

Citibank Global Transfers allows a customer to move USD from Citibank USA to a USD account at Citibank Philippines in real-time for no fee.

Citibank Phillipines also allows customers to transfer between a USD account to a PHP account from the Citibank Philippines online banking portal.

I would expect Citibank's conversion rate from USD to PHP to be respectable - probably not as good as one would get from a moneychanger, but still acceptable.

Citibank Philippines is a member of BancNet, the largest ATM consortium in the Philippines.

BancNet allows **INTERBANK** transfers among its members for PHP 25

So, one could transfer PHP from Citibank Philippines to, for example, Maybank for about $0.60 USD.

BancNet is also interconnected to the two other large ATM network consortiums in the Philippines (ExpressNet and MegaLink), which means one could
transfer PHP from Citibank to member banks of those consortiums as well.

So, to boil it all down, it wouldn't really matter that Citibank is only in Manila - all one needs is the Citibank Philippines account to receive
the USD and perform the USD to PHP conversion; then move the PHP to the local bank of one's choice through BancNet, ExpressNet, or MegaLink and 
pull out PHP with one's local ATM card.

Also, in 2014, Citi Philippines was reappointed as the sole settlement bank for the Philippines Domestic Dollar Transfer System (PDDTS), which
means you **CAN** transfer USD from your Citibank Philippines USD account to your USD account at another bank, but Citibank's fee is,
essentially, the same as a wire transfer fee and, from my perspective, prohibitive. 

 

[AlwaysRt]

I set up a Schwab Brokerage and Checking account before I left the States. The checking account has a withdrawal fee reimbursed ATM card. I have on several occations withdrawn p40,000 (2 - p20,000 transactions back to back) from BPI. Yes they incur a p200 transaction fee but Schwab reimburses that fee at the end of the month (so net $0.00 fee). I usually check xe.com for the current exchange rate and have always recieved anywhere from p0.05 to p0.75 Better rate. That works for me although some people prefer transferring to a local bank instead.

[OnMyWay]

1 hour ago, AlwaysRt said:

I set up a Schwab Brokerage and Checking account before I left the States.

Does Schwab know you live in the Philippines?

[patmac]

I have C. Schwab to and a contact phone # in Hong Kong. Schwab has a branch there , same time zone .   Good to work out a transfer of funds for large purchases 

[AlwaysRt]

8 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

Does Schwab know you live in the Philippines?

I have a traveling mailbox account so my "permanent address" is in Texas. Schwab does know I am not in the states as I update my location so I do not have withdrawal issues (being denied for security). For example when I lived in Hong Kong it was just a computer travel update, in the Philippines I also had to call them. 

Yes they know I am here (by updating them, and by using BPI ATMs in the Philippines), but my "account address" is still in the U.S.  

[OnMyWay]

1 hour ago, AlwaysRt said:

I have a traveling mailbox account so my "permanent address" is in Texas. Schwab does know I am not in the states as I update my location so I do not have withdrawal issues (being denied for security). For example when I lived in Hong Kong it was just a computer travel update, in the Philippines I also had to call them. 

Yes they know I am here (by updating them, and by using BPI ATMs in the Philippines), but my "account address" is still in the U.S.  

Thanks for the info!  Fidelity would freeze my trading if they knew I was permanently overseas, so I have to be careful with them.  If I could find another broker that was more flexible, I would switch, but I think they are all going down that road due to U.S. over-regulation.