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@Travelnman

I see you have been a forum member for near 4 months and have access to a plethora of info on this site with regards to your asks and only takes a simple search.

When you get here have you considered the visa type you will apply for? If a visitor visa then it will take months to open a bank account here but you can still access funds using your debit card in a hole in the wall until you get set up, OTP's and 2FA's need to be considered also for accessing your funds once you are set up here with a bank account, plenty on this topic here and how to deal with the problem you will face.

Government institutions/companies/mail forwarding/banking for me is all digital and done online and I set聽 that up before I moved here permanently but had a house and phone number here in PH. so was relatively easy.

I would put a lot of wheels in motion while you have time in the US before you move here.

Building a house? Foreigners cannot own land here only a condo or secure a long term lease or simply rent.

Honestly moving to another country is not like moving suburb or state and requires a lot of research and planning.

Good luck.

Cheers, Steve.

@bigpearl

OTP's and 2FA's need to be considered also for accessing your funds once you are set up here with a bank account, plenty on this topic here and how to deal with the problem you will face.

Excellent and important advice, Steve, for Americans moving out of country. And with most US banks and many credit cards, online banking usually requires the worst form of 2FA for expats (in addition to it being least secure), i.e. SMS code sent to a cell phone. Charles Schwab may be an exception that accepts alternate 2FA. For sim SMS you will need a US non-voip number that can receive texts in the phils sent from USA banks. Everybody seems to have a different solution for this. If you will require internet contact with your bank, you had best work that out before coming here.

Yes Dan, read all about the problems and debacles US citizens face with banking from O/S and I seriously think the OP needs to look into this big time as well as notifying the bank/s that he will be O/S so they can unlock credit and debit cards used in other countries well before getting on a flight.

Unlike the US and maybe Oz is slack but for me my main bank simply sends me an OTP to my PH. number while the other I have an app and they send me a 6 digit code to log in and again if I want to transfer funds either in Oz or to O/S, seems to work perfectly.

As said moving countries is not like moving states and requires serious research and plenty of patience and not pretending to be naive as it's certainly going to come back and bite you.

Cheers, Steve.

You should also consider the fact that if the only way that you can get cash is through ATM's with a foreign card, nearly all the banks here will charge you P200 or P250 for each ATM transaction. If however you are already in a relationship with a Filipina that you can trust then you can send money to her bank account through remittance companies.

@FindlayMacD

By the way, the advice you receive will be different for different nationalities because of the rules your home country banks follow.

I would also consider bringing in nice crisp US dollars and the receipt for that for the money changers but remember the max is US 10K. After 3/4 months once you have your ACR1 card then good luck opening a bank account,,,,, took 4 banks for me even with a 12 month lease on a condo and a Filipino partner with me. Banks here are franchised and each manager has their own rules for their bank/s.

Cheers, Steve.

Since you are still in the US you may consider opening an account with Philippine National Bank

or Metro Bank

We have an account with PNB New York City which was set up via Zoom call. But you must be physically in the US to do this. Google PNB New York for contact information

When we remodeled our house it was easy to do bank to bank transfer in the US then collect the money as needed locally in 2 to 3 days at the nearest PNB branch.聽 As we transferred between 5 and 9 K per transaction it was cheaper with a better exchange rate than using Western Union or Remitly

As stated earlier make sure your bank and credit card companies know you are here!

i kept my US phone number for $25 a month (Visible by Verizon) so I can call the US if needed and receive security pins for logging into banks and Social Security if required.

There is lot of information on this site, just do a search

You should also consider the fact that if the only way that you can get cash is through ATM's with a foreign card, nearly all the banks here will charge you P200 or P250 for each ATM transaction. If however you are already in a relationship with a oFilipina that you can trust then you can send money to her bank account through remittance companies. - @FindlayMacD

Right, you don't really need atm's although they are convenient. You can also remit the funds to yourself using remitly and the like for pickup at palawan, Lhuillier, LBC and many more or by Western Union for pickup at western union

or, yes, to your gf bank account. But if you need online banking you need to handle 2FA. I noticed my bank still does telephone banking, very old and very slow, but it works for balance transfers, inquiries and the like, even using magicjack voip. If I had to do that it would be a big step backwards but that old 1980's method still works at my bank.

@gregparker6201

I had an account with PNB Europe for many years before I decided to live here in the Philippines (at that time I was married to a Filipina who I had brought to live with me in the UK) and although the PNB Europe account based in London was very useful for sending money to the Philippines, you have to realise that any overseas PNB bank accounts don't mean anything here in the Philippines, not even for references, all overseas PNB banks are completely separate PNB Philippines.

@bigpearl

All of your foreign currency notes should be absolutely flawless if you are going to exchange them here in the Philippines or the banks and or the money changers won't accept them. I went to a money changer here in Cagayan De Oro with 拢500 UK currency and the money changer rejected four 拢20 notes, so I only got what was the equivalent of 拢420 in PHP.

@bigpearl
All of your foreign currency notes should be absolutely flawless if you are going to exchange them here in the Philippines or the banks and or the money changers won't accept them. I went to a money changer here in Cagayan De Oro with 拢500 UK currency and the money changer rejected four 拢20 notes, so I only got what was the equivalent of 拢420 in PHP. - @FindlayMacD

That is one problem with bringing currency here. In the US there is another problem. Although by law you can bring in up to $10K, TSA at US airports will often alert local law enforcement when a traveler has more cash than normally fits in one's wallet. So on the domestic legs of your trip, if you are carrying $3K or more, although this is perfectly legal, the law enforcement officer may say he has reasonable suspicion that by carrying all that money you must be dealing drugs or money laundering. He will not arrest you but he can and will sieze the money. You must sue in court to get it back. It's called "civil asset forfieture". You are free to continue your trip minus your cash. This is kind of a new problem at USA airports but SCOTUS has ruled this is legal. It is often not worthwhile to sue due to costs and law enforcement knows it is all BS but their departments get enriched by the extra money that is forfeited. So the cash must be perfect and it stands a risk of confiscation. Debit and credit cards are the way to bring money here or remittance transfers after you arrive.

@FindlayMacD

we have had no issues with our PNB account

On the app I can see the balance in New York in Dollars and locally in pesos. The difference in banking laws between US and European may be the reason for this

My thanks to all who replied

Your information is very much appreciated

Feel free to add any more advice聽 on thus subject

Regards

Traveling man59