Converting Pesos To Dollars
After using my debit card to get some quick cash, my effective exchange rate for pesos to dollars is horrible! Wow, Metrobank in the Philippines along with my American bank must be tacking on some massive fees for me to use my debit card. Yes, I know I’m converting dollars to pesos but the exchange rate is the same. Most people think of it that way, so I’m using pesos to dollars instead.
The exchange rate in the Philippines is one of the most common topics for expats living in the Philippines and those that want to be expats living in the Philippines.
So I’m better off just using Xoom and paying the $5.99. They lowered their fee back down to $5.99 for now.
In the past, when I used my debit card the pesos to dollars exchange rate I got was better than that of any of the remittance companies. It was equivalent to that published online by XE.
I normally only use a debit card if funds run low near the end of the month or I need to make a special purchase outside of my budget. I wont be doing that any more except in an emergency. This last ATM withdrawal was for a trip to the doctor a day before payday.
I withdrew P1000 and the deduction from my bank account was $27.63. That’s makes my effective exchange rate P36.19 to $1USD! But it only will get worse because my bank will add another $5.00 at the end of the month for using an ATM other than one owned by Wachovia. Haven’t seen too many Wachovia branch offices around the Philippines.
Earlier this month, I withdrew P2000 and my bank charged me $52.73 for an effective pesos to dollars exchange rate of P38.29 to $1 USD. About $1.60 of that was for Visa’s international transaction surcharge.
Now I need a Xanax. :) I wont take one though. This momentary tenseness wont last long.
Pesos To Dollars Actual Exchange Rate
At the moment I’m typing this, the pesos to dollars exchange rate is 43.32. Over the last year the pesos to dollars exchange rate looks pretty grim if you’re an American living in the Philippines:
- Pesos To Dollars For Last 12 Months
I sure hope the Federal Reserve Bank in the USA stops printing more freaking money. My patience is growing thin. But, what can I do? Not a dang thing.
I’m currently reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine and he puts forth that government is a necessary evil. I fully concur with that. Speaking of which, I need to get back to doing my taxes. I was going through quicken and noticed that the P1000 pesos to dollars exchange rate I have been getting when using my ATM card is horrific. I have not used my ATM card to send money to the Philippines in a while and I suspect that I’ll be doing it a lot less!
If you’d like to read more articles about the exchange rate in the Philippines visit this the Exchange Rate Category on CEX.
Let’s examine the effective pesos to dollars exchange rate using Xoom. Since I’m doing it as I type, I may find I’m not pleased again!
Lets say someone is sending $1500 to the Philippines to pick up their cash in pesos. Xoom indicates that the transaction will result in you getting 63,525.51 pesos. After adding Xoom’s $5.99 fee to this you would get an effective pesos to dollars exchange rate of: P42.18 or about a one peso per dollar than the XE rate. That is the amount I long ago accepted as my pesos to dollars rate of exchange.
Tagged with: Dollars To Pesos • Exchange Rate • Expats • Expats Living in The Philippines • Pesos To Dollars
Filed under: Dollar To Philippine Peso • Living In The Philippines
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Rusty, There’s not a whole lot anyone can do about the exchange rate. My wife and I have a bank account in the Philippines, and time to time we send money to the account. It’s a peso account, so we suck it up and not worrie about it, but if we would wait for the right time to send the money when the exchange is up, we would not have the money saved. We would spend the money on bills and not have anything for the future.Oh ya we also use Zoom.com to send the money,It’s the cheapest for right now……….JC
Hi JC! I sometimes miss the point but… if the dollar continues to perform poorly, you can always pull it back and get more dollars than you put in. I think… I had to re-think that several times. haha Then you could create a tax gain for yourself though making matters really complicated.
No there is nothing the average “Joe six pack” can do about the pesos to dollars rate. But there is a lot we can do about the effective rate. That is by pulling our money into the Philippines in he most cost saving way.
I suppose the pesos to dollars rate is much like the weather. Everyone one complains about it but….
Rusty, not to change the subject, but I’am looking into useing my Paypal account to send funds to my peso account. I haven’t tryed this yet, have you heard about useing it that way? If it’s possible? I’am trying to find all the in’s and out’s before moving over to the philippines. Any suggestion would be very helpful in this matter.Thanks again…..JC
I need to look into that but in the past it was not possible. However, I recently talked to an expat that found a bank in the Philippines where he could send money from Paypal to his account.
With one bank he couldn’t but with another he could. Something about Paypal not having a relationship with the first bank.
I’ve had too many problems with Paypal to risk sending large amounts of cash. I’ve read on some Internet marketing forums that soon after they executed some large transfers, Paypal put a hold on their accounts.
Paypal is not regulated like a bank. I don’t like Paypal but as soon as I get a chance, I’m going to look into to see if the situation with them has changed. It use to be next to impossible though some expats figured out a way to do it by getting another card with another organization.
Google “Paypal Fraud” and you’ll get an eye opening read. As you can tell, I’m not a fan of Paypal. I use them but I don’t like it. haha
Folks, something is wrong with comments. I know its broken. The comments work fine but after most people click submit, they are getting a blank page.
The comments are posting but you might not be able to see it unless you’ve had a prior approved post.
I’m looking at how to fix it. Pulled my hair out for a couple of hours on that issue today. A complete waste of my time.
Rusty,
I am interested to see what banks there are in the Philippnes. I mean I have a Wachovia banking account too, but I also have various military related credit unions. In addition there might be some international banks that would not change a fee for using their bank there if you already had an account. Would you maybe do up a a piece on this, please? I think that it would be a good chapter or addition to your book
I don’t know enough to write about International banks in the Philippines. I know that HSBC has an account here but I wouldn’t open an account with them for anything.
I sent them an email asking them about their no fee accounts and i got back an email saying that I didn’t have an account with them so they wouldn’t answer. That’s all I needed to know. Oh well, I don’t have 70K USD lying around so it doesn’t matter. Someone else said that Capital One has no charges. Credit unions are often a good way to go.
When Wachovia fully changes over to Well’s Fargo, you’ll be able to use Well’s Fargo Remittance, I think for free or maybe its $5 if you have an account.
It is really hard to get solid information about banks here. What is on the websites might be outdated. Until you walk in the door, you never really know what you get. banking in the Philippines is much like that box of chocolates….
Someone emailed me a link for a list of banks in the Philippines. Was it you?
If so you don’t need this but others might:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banks_in_the_Philippines#Commercial_and_Soh
It is a lot to sort through but there is an extended list of banks int he Philippines. I researched them years ago and found it overwhelming.
Then I found I couldn’t open an account here at all. That has changed now.
I recently used the ATM with my debit card in the Philippines and was shocked at the effective rate. It was under P40, somewhere around P39.6. The real rate at the time was somewhere around 43.3 or so. There was also the expected usage charge of $2.50, but that was a separate charge.
I plan to call my bank to find out the details of the transactions – if there we additional fees included, and the exchange rate was on their side or not.
I had not experienced this in my previous trips, and had I known the rate would have been so bad I would have brought more money and exchanged it at the airport or money changer. I don’t like to travel with too much cash, but I guess I have no choice given this.
So it was that bad before you applied the $2.50
I’m charged $5.00 each time I use mine.
It use to not be like that. However maybe I just didn’t notice. Visa use to add a separate 5% but that seems to have disappeared and it is right in the transaction now, just not disclosed.
I use to get what the rate was at XE but I don’t know. Not sure why the change. The small amount you can get per transaction makes it much worse too. P20,000 in some areas but in Cebu it is P10,000 per transaction so my $5.00 charge get applied twice if I withdraw P20,000 which is the daily limit. No thanks.
So what I found out was:
• The $2.50 charge was from my bank to use the foreign ATM
• There was a P200 charge from the ATM issuing bank
• My bank charged a 3% fee for international visa usage
• The exchange rate was slightly lower than the actual at the time
My bank was not able to provide any information regarding the exchange rate and foreign ATM fee nor the total amount they exchanged. I had to figure it out on my own.
Because of my own concerns whether I could get money out at all (therefor having three withdrawals) and the different fees, I got charged about 10% on my money.
Several people have told me to use Paypal. I tried that and it got much worse. Below 38. I wouldn’t use Paypal. And the last time I tried to use may Paypal card here, Paypal wouldn’t let the transaction go through. Doesn’t matter, I really don’t like using Paypal for anything, sometimes I must though. Sometimes it is still cheaper.
Lots of people continue to use ATMs blissfully unaware that they are getting raked over the coals.
I have found what you have found. And you’re using HSBC which isn’t suppose to have any fees for ATM or so I thought. There’s no way to avoid the P100 or so the banks hosting the ATM’s charge.
If you use Xoom or other such rate, you’re not going to get the rate published on XE or even Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. It will be about P1 less. Not quite that much in most cases but close. Plus you have to pay their $5.99 fee which they lowered from I think $7.99. The effective rate of the $5.99 goes down the more money you send. For small amount, an ATM doesn’t matter too much. In Cebu though, anything more than P10,000 means two withdrawals and another fee which is $5.00 in my case so I don’t do that any more.
With Xoom the money is in my bank account within a couple of hours now. After Xoom began to trust my account, it took about 10 minutes if I pick it up from one of the remittance agents. I can wait a couple of hours.