Crypto friendly Banks in Manila

[TimStone]

Hi there,

I'm german and moved to Manila in october. 

I'm already enjoying the wallet coins.ph and pay alot of my bills with this. Quite impressive to find something like this here which I had never seen anywhere I lived in Europe.

Naturally I'm looking for a bank account now to which I can cash out some crypto winnings via coins.ph - they seem to support most banks but are really all banks in favour of it?

Are there people actively cashing out crypto into fiat via coins.ph? What bank are you using? Did you check with the bank beforehand if it was ok? What amounts?

What about bigger amounts of 300-500k pesos a month?


Overall I would like to know some suggestions for good and crypto friendly banks. Alot of banks seem still very hostile towards it though even though in my opinion they should be happy if people exchange it for fiat and put it in their bank

anyways, thanks alot in advance and I'm happy for any tipps and suggestions

[harizen]

Hi,

This answer is "based on my experienced": (coins.ph transactions)

Didn't have a problem dealing with these banks: (withdrawals)

-Bank of the Philippine Island (BPI)
-UnionBank
-EastWest Bank

To not trigger the alarm, Im not initiating a big cashouts in a single transaction.

Not user friendly (based on others as I don't have experienced dealing with these bank):

-Banco De Oro Unibank (BDO) (Also heard that they are closing accounts related to crypto transactions in the past. You will need to undergo their own interview to unfreeze your account).

[Dreamchaser21]

So far Unionbank is the only bank who offers crypto to fiat directly, but with regerds to other banks you still have to use your coins.ph account and verification is needed for that. If its higher amount, then the risk might be high with you since AMLA are too strict on this. I wonder if you’ve already verified your coins.ph because if its not, then the withdrawal amount is limited.

[Lassie]

I've been using RCBC and BPI banks when cashing out hundred thousands in pesos and there is no problem, never been asked about where my money is coming from.

[ALLON2017]

 I like Tagcash it shows huge potential and the dev mark seems very clever and shows plenty of determination to see this through. Tagcash has central bank and thousands of 7-elevens supporting it across the Phillipines.

[mk4]

Metrobank has been fine with my withdrawals lately. Last year, every Abra --> bank withdrawal has been tedious as hell, as Metrobank had to call me and ask me everytime where the money is coming from. It's been seamless since months ago though. Not sure about Coins.ph as I haven't tried Coins.ph --> bank withdrawals.

As for 300-500k pesos a month? I'm pretty sure every single bank is going to question you with that huge of an amount of withdrawal/deposits, regardless if it's crypto related or not.

[Astvile]

There are two banks i know associated and i personally use to cashout my funds,first is BPI (Bank of the Philippine Islands) process is fast cashout before 10 am and you receive funds at 6pm that day never tried huge amount like what you mentioned but ihave tried 50k cash no problem encountered same as with BDO (Banco de Oro)

[Lassie]

I like Tagcash it shows huge potential and the dev mark seems very clever and shows plenty of determination to see this through. Tagcash has central bank and thousands of 7-elevens supporting it across the Phillipines.

First time I heard about Tagcash, is it a bank? Pretty sure it is not a bank like what Tim is asking here.

Did a research and yes it is not a bank.

[TimStone]

thanks for the replies to far, much appreciated!

yes my coins.ph is fully veryfied and I think they limit spending/cashouts to a certain degree with level 3 verification but you still can do fairly big amounts especially for the philippines!


BDO I heard they are not too keen on crypto but for instance I wanted to open an account with Union Bank around 6 weeks back and when telling them that I'm a crypto investor they pretty much declined opening an account for me. Was quite surprised since they are the ones who actually have the Bitcoin-atm...

Sooner or later I plan to buy a condo with crypto investments mainly but as long as the owners don't accept crypto going via a bank and fiat will most likely be my only option hence all the questions. But I also don't want to run into a situation where I make 2 cashouts to a bank, then they ask me and I obviously don't gonna lie about it and they shutting down my account...


cheers

[harizen]

But I also don't want to run into a situation where I make 2 cashouts to a bank, then they ask me and I obviously don't gonna lie about it and they shutting down my account...

You will trigger the alarm if your bank account received a decent amount of money within a short period of time. Applies to all banks.

The amount involved will be considered as red-flagged especially if the account is not known for having a regular decent money transactions.

[mirakal]

You can continue to use coins.ph for your bank transfers, they support a lot of banks, in my experience, I do transaction using BPI and although not instant but it's ensured it can be process in 24 hours. Though there is a limit but the system is really working, not sure about their rules because you are a german and you need to verify your account in a certain level for a certain limit as well. 

[TimStone]

But I also don't want to run into a situation where I make 2 cashouts to a bank, then they ask me and I obviously don't gonna lie about it and they shutting down my account...

You will trigger the alarm if your bank account received a decent amount of money within a short period of time. Applies to all banks.

The amount involved will be considered as red-flagged especially if the account is not known for having a regular decent money transactions.

yeah, ofc. not thinking of doing big 1time transfer more like thinking of taking out certain amount each month and also paying bills/rent via this, thanks

[zenrol28]

You can try out Unionbank. Since they've been partners with coins.ph. And aside from that, they are "the first bank" in the country to produce a Bitcoin ATM. Of course KYC still applies, a standard of all banks. 

[Lassie]

You can try out Unionbank. Since they've been partners with coins.ph. And aside from that, they are "the first bank" in the country to produce a Bitcoin ATM. Of course KYC still applies, a standard of all banks. 

read his reply about Unionbank. not sure why you can't read few replies first before posting a comment.

I wanted to open an account with Union Bank around 6 weeks back and when telling them that I'm a crypto investor they pretty much declined opening an account for me. Was quite surprised since they are the ones who actually have the Bitcoin-atm...

@Tim maybe 100,000 per week is good enough to cashout your cryptos, I tried cashing out 50k daily and it doesn't give me a problem.

[zenrol28]

-snip

Sorry, I must've overlooked it when I was browsing.
Thanks.
In my experience BTW, I managed to open an account with them.
And my reason was to be able to use the Bitcoin ATM.
That's why I finished my research regarding it.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5118930.msg50096544

Maybe because OP is a foreigner and they might have stricter rules for KYC.
Since he's less than a year residing here in our country.

I'm german and moved to Manila in october.  

[iamMhew]

BDO I heard they are not too keen on crypto but for instance I wanted to open an account with Union Bank around 6 weeks back and when telling them that I'm a crypto investor they pretty much declined opening an account for me. Was quite surprised since they are the ones who actually have the Bitcoin-atm...

You must have indicated in your "Source of Income" section that you earned your living thru crypto investing.
You might wanna change that, maybe you can indicate you earn thru online marketing, business, etc.
And also I think it depends upon the bank staff who process your account opening.

[Lassie]

BDO I heard they are not too keen on crypto but for instance I wanted to open an account with Union Bank around 6 weeks back and when telling them that I'm a crypto investor they pretty much declined opening an account for me. Was quite surprised since they are the ones who actually have the Bitcoin-atm...

You must have indicated in your "Source of Income" section that you earned your living thru crypto investing.
You might wanna change that, maybe you can indicate you earn thru online marketing, business, etc.
And also I think it depends upon the bank staff who process your account opening.

He doesn't want to lie about his source of income like what he said above so opening a bank account with crypto as a source of income will be very hard but if he has any other source of income aside from crypto he might use it

[Xenrise]

If you'll be sending big amount of money on your bank account, in any of them you should not send it on one transaction only. The bank will question your deposit. Probably, give an ample time before you send the next ones. I think, you can try banks like BPI, BDO in the Philippines, you can see on your coins.ph that you can send money directly to your bank account from coins.