Sending Money to Philippines

Hi Sybel!

Since you are already living and working in Indonesia, I'll assume you have a KITAS visa and thus you could easily open a US dollar account at any of the many banks here.

You can also do direct bank wire transfers from IDR bank accounts, but the exchange rate for foreign currency used by banks here in Indonesia is not often very favorable. 

Bank wire transfers are much cheaper than Western Union (currently $5.00 per transfer with BCA). 

The other issue to consider is what the receiving bank in The Philippines charges for incoming bank wires.

Moneygram would be more inexpensive. They have Moneygram almost everywhere in Indonesia. It is usually available in BCA (Bank Central Asia), CIMB Niaga, Bank Mega, etc.

You may want to check qwartapadala.com. I came across that site when I was in Singapore. Try to pay it a visit maybe it could provide what you might need, I haven't tried sending from Indonesia though. It was really cheap I only paid 1,171.80 SGD when I sent 40,000.00 for my brothers(2 of them) enrollment what surprised me really was that I only paid 200.00 PHP (5.83 SGD) for the service fee. It was really surprising because I used to send through Western Union and never went back. I don't know if this could help. Just give it a try, creating an account was free anyway.

hi sybel,
did u find a better way to send money to philippines, let me know ,
thankYou,
jay