Evolution of banking services in the Philippines

From my experience here in the Philippines, banking services are subpar compared to the services of my United States financial services.

I have had numerous local accounts here in the Philippines. They have all failed in one point or another at some time for varying reasons, according to banks. BDO is the largest financial institution, but I have always had problems with them.

I imagine it's also happened to companies/Philippine goverrnment agencies also because I have found that certain government agencies and companies have discontinued use of BDO services. So I reccomend that people do banking with multiple accounts at different large banks (ie. BPI, Union Bank, etc.)

GCash has erupted on the scene over the last few years, but I call it 'Gtrash'. They always are offline or are have technical problems, but many people/companies use them. I do not and I never will again. Customer service is subpar, if you could actually speak to a person and not a machine. It took me 3-months to finally have an authenticated account, after being told 48-72 hours.

Contactless payments are non-existent, when trying to conduct business from international credit cards online (Pay Maya,G-cash,etc.). Usually, I just go directly to whatever bank of company's business account and deposit the cost /cash into the account. Sometimes I will transfer from my own peso bank account. But since the pandemic, I have grown accustomed of doing without, too many hassles, long lines at companies, banks, etc.; offline systems. I stick to conducting business with overseas banks during their business hours, usually I have no problems.

Philippine financial institutions are troublesome, except at malls. Payment centers are everywhere, but there are far too many people waiting in line and there are no checks and balances for safeguards of information passed with the multitude of paperwork. Every branch is different according to the personnel working. No standard operating procedures being instituted for completion of tasks, despite having technology that could assist. It's just turtle-paced environments of commerce. The systems in place work with Philippine commerce and banks, probabaly according to design by large companies, Bangko Sentral Pilipinas, and the government.

I can travel to other Asian nations and have different results compared to the Philippines. Many foreigners that I met abroad give me insight to nations with less bureaucracy and good banking models for international banking transactions.

As I said from my experiences here in the Philippines, so if it works for you fine, but for me, I try to live hassle-free and enjoy my life, as a Filipino resident/visitor. Banking here is about redundacy. Have more than one avenue for financial transactions within the Philippines and outside the Philippines. Don't lose hair because things do not work as they should or as one perceives it should operate.

A man after my own thoughts alltojah, banks here are the pits and seem to make up the rules as they go along, not following the franchise doctrines but hey we are used to that.

As for G-cash used it for years and never had an issue with them except seems they now throw on a couple of Pesos per most transaction.

A safe full of money wins the day and seems to give more bargaining power.

Cheers, Steve.

I use GCash a lot, and have not had any problems. But my helper can't get authenticated, somehow.

When I deposited a Schwab check into my SRRV-required dollar account at Bank of Commerce, it was ONE MONTH before I was allowed to withdraw funds, despite that my check cleared Schwab in 4 days. I had thought that cashing a check would be a good alternative to the ATM, but not with a month of losing interest to their float. Plus, I found an ATM that gives 40,000 per transaction, increasing the convenience factor there.

So far, I haven't had any problems with my BDO peso account. On-line transfers to GCash are easy, but I haven't tried to transfer to any other institution. Once I went into a branch to use the ATM (the two outside were out-of-order)--it was configured to take your fingerprint (which you had registered, if you even knew about it) or something else I think. I was unable to use my BDO ATM card at that BDO ATM. Crazy.

Welcome to the Philippines.

Cheers, Steve.

Of course the starting point for each of us is different

what you need your bank for ?

Opening an account ( Pesos or dollar ) will go rather smoothly with most of the big banks ( players)

transferring between your own accounts still works hasstle free with no costs

sending money to other bank will cost you

( you must check if transferring money with your own bank is beneficial or through 3rd party ( MAYA, GCash etc)

Requesting a loan might give you your first grey hair but in the end you’ll get it

the bank apps is also something to consider

Apps not always user friendly

References used for transfers are not always easy to trace and or understand

Bank employees are generally kind but everything seems to take so much time

Bank Call centres are the worst

philippine people are trained to remain kind and polite but in the end they don’t help you

Requesting bank documents takes  ages but if you are late with one payment they chase you all over

banks here are not for you they are for the hard cash and profit

When living in Big cities its still ok

but living in provincial places is a disaster

ATM’s are always empty

not many of the big banks have offices

so you need to drive to bigger towns

and… I am not talking about doing business

its just private banking

As a western, you simply need to adapt and don’t compare too much with what you had back home

you are here for a reason so take the advantages along with all the disadvantages and deal with it

they mean well but we live in a developping country ( not develloped yet)

success and patience

Well said frenschfred, echoes my experiences and thoughts.

Cheers, Steve.

bizwizard said . . . .When I deposited a Schwab check into my SRRV-required dollar account at Bank of Commerce, it was ONE MONTH before I was allowed to withdraw funds, despite that my check cleared Schwab in 4 days.

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Depositing checks is always a hassle, but par for the course. When my wife & I moved to the Philippines she opened an account at BDO. She deposited a personal check from Citibank USA it took 25 working days to be credited to the account, but cleared Citibank in one day.

Sometime later we received an income tax refund check (US Treasury), BDO wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. My stepson used an app taking a picture of the check and deposited it our Citibank USA account. The next day we used Wise to move the money to our BDO account.

What I really miss is getting cash back when paying with a debit card in the USA, even at the self service checkouts.

When I first visited the Philippines over Thirty Years ago. I couldn't understand why visits to a Bank took so long. Simple Transactions, that in a European Bank would take only Minutes, here took over an Hour.

Online Banking is a great step forward. Most transactions can now be done Online, without a lengthy time spent sitting in a Bank.

And, we can operate our "Metro Bank" account when we are out of the Country. Which is a huge bonus.

I'll keep it short, the banks here are a joke compared to banks I'm use to in HK, SG and US.

The wait time is atrocious and I thought HK was bad, unless you are VIP.

I never thought swift / TT would ever give me trouble. @BDO

They held my money hostage with zero explanation and just told me it was under investigation. Also @ BDO

My options was simply wait or close the account. @ BDO

I got a checking account after much interrogation, YES I felt like I was interrogated. @BDO

I don't know why it's such a hassle to get checking here, it's not like anyone can do anything with checks right? Or I am missing something? I only use them to make post dated checks for rent which on another subject, it's dumb. As if tenant don't want to pay or can't, they'll just bounce checks and run away anyway. /shrugs

My experience was slightly better with @ Metrobank

They won't give me a checking after I told them I already have one at BDO, reason for transfer was my BDO branch is FARRRRRR. They treated me like a "3rd class citizen" for lack of better word and just basically told me to shoo off, I think it was because I had a low balance in my account. They were too busy kissing ass of a middle aged lady there with her LV bag and fancy jewelry and dress.

I manage to secure credit cards at 3 different banks @BDO, Citi, Metrobank

Cheapest credit given was BDO. 15K seriously? I can't even do my shopping with that sh*t, (Yes I know, first world problems right). Metrobank was better and Citi was the most generous.

I still have my AMEX  /shrugs

I set up a 3rd party transfer wire directly linked to my BDO as a backup to my normal swift transfer to my Metrobank, yea /finger BDO. I just transfer exactly what I need to cover checks to my BDO account and keep what I need for monthly in my Metrobank, the rest stays offshore.

/I understand banks need to protect themselves but this is borderline insane.

@Cheryl

honestly I think PH is not ready for cashless, I see credit card ads everywhere now with numerous promotions.

Is PH ready to go cashless? Yes and it'll be great.

Is PH ready to handle all the fraud, phishing, smishing, "insert con name here", Absolutely NO.

In the end, the amount loss due to fraud will end up being shouldered by the normal consumers.

Hi Guys,

I'm retiring soon as Dual Citizen (Phil/Am) in the Phil. from the US.

1] Does anybody here use U.S. based Prepaid Card/s, which one is the most reliable and less fees? 

2] How do you set it up with Direct Deposit of SS Benefit and paying US credit cards and Bills?

3] Can this Prepaid Card/s be used Indefinitely in both Phil. and US?

Thank you very much for your help. Ray

@Enzyte Bob   thats what i do. I take pics of my checks using my i phone and then deposit  in my  Charles Schwab account. I then transfer to my PNB using Pangea or Remitly   

@frenschfred you have to take the good with the bad but remember even in the US we are often faced with banking issues. Take for example the Wells Fargo scandal, recent bank default in silicon valley, bank bail outs in last recession, long hold times, reduced hours since Covid

@Ray Agui

SS is afraid your Philippine family is going to abscond with you SS checks if you die. A real possible issue. So there is an agreement between SS Admin and PNB (Philippine National Bank) to set up an account in your name that SS will deposit into. However PNB will not allow anyone but you to physically make a withdraw from that account. I spent a few weeks in the hospital due to a serious infected foot injury, and the bank had to sen two representatives to my hospital room to verify my identity. (PNB are great people. I can not see any American bank doing that for me!)

Because of this they will not allow a credit card to be attached to this account.

I think you can contact SS about this before you come here to set up an account with PNB. There are PNB banks in several states in the US, but I set mine up here. It was a new process then and I had to go three months without my SS. I suggest you set it up before you fly over here so you do not lose SS for 90 days.

Seems my experience with bdo is similar to others.  I sold remittance in the states and the paperwork was atrocious.  They stopped doing business with me as I didn't send enough business their way.  I was never so thankful and should've cut them off way before but I was trying to help service the philippino community here.  Anyway, I have a store which is designed for sales and when sales aren't happening because you must deal with a remittance which takes about 30 minutes and only pays 8 dollars, you aren't making money.  When I stopped, sending remittance, I just recommended online transfers as I would never recommend bdo for anything.  Everyone is pleasant to deal with but the system needs significant improvement.  They should spend more of their advertising funds on upgrading their technology rather than internet, tv and radio adds.