Philipino here!! But living in united states
What are your thoughts on remittances to the Philippines? Bitcoin Vs. Western Union / other.
I hope you don't mind if I try to answer this. It's a fact that Western Union remittance has fees that is paid by the one sending the money. I'm not very sure of how much WU charge for those fees (if I'm not mistaken, it seems to be varying per US state), but aside from those fees, the receiver of the money will be charged with
hidden fees when the receiver takes the remittance in Pesos.
It happens in the following manner: WU's PHP/USD exchange rate is quite low compared to let's say Reuters current exchange rate, or even Google's or local banks like BDO, BPI, Unionbank, etc. If I remember it correctly, it's somewhere around 2.7% lower than it should be. Now if my figures are accurate, the fees involved when doing remittance via WU from USA to Philippines would not be lower than 2.7% (because of the fees paid by the sender).
Now, the 2.7% discrepancy on the PHP/USD exchange rate by WU branches here on the Philippines, can possibly be bypassed,
if the receiver would want to take the remittance as USD. That would only be possible
if the WU branch where the receiver claims his remittance
has that amount of USD.
Now in the case of Bitcoin remittance, the sender of cash from the US sends his bitcoins to a third-party here in the Philippines, where that person would be the one in charge of sending/depositing cash to the receiver. It can be simplified as someone from the US sells his bitcoins to a third-party in the Philippines and that third-party would be paying the receiver with PHP. The Bitcoin remittance model could only be a better choice over WU or other money remittance service from US to Philippines, if the third-party bitcoin buyer would be buying at a better PHP/USD exchange rate compared to WU. But most of the time, this would not be the case, as the bitcoin buyer will most likely charge you with a bigger percentage than WU, in order to account for the bitcoin price fluctuation.
I my opinion, Bitcoin as money remittance from US to Philippines would only be a solution to the remittance problem, if bitcoins strengthen in value (EDIT: or become stable in value), and if the third-party person would not ask for a bigger percent of the total remittance value.
