(1st of 3 parts) I was in Canada and heard from my cousin that Smart Padala and G-Cash remittance services were available at a nearby convenience store. She showed me flyers of both services bearing the seal of what I suppose is an established remittance company: “œPhilippine Remittance Express.”
How can I resist? I tried out both remittance services and sent CAD25 each (25 Canadian Dollars is around Php1,000) to fellow PTBlogger Migs Paraz and my brother, Estong. Here’s what I found out in the process of sending a remittance from the Yuan Ming oriental store at Mississauga, Ontario, Canada (more details on eofw.edongskey.com) .
Quick figures:
“¢ CAD 8: cost to sender for mobile remittance (~Php320)
“¢ CAD 10-14: cost to sender for regular remittance (~Php400-Php564)
“¢ CAD 2-6: savings for sending via mobile remittance (~Php80-Php240)
“¢ 1% of remittance amount: cost to remittance recipients when they exchange the G-Cash to cash / Smart Padala to cash.
“¢ 1-4 days: door-to-door delivery time depending on receiving area
“¢ 1 banking day: credit to bank delivery time (Canada is around 12 hours behind Philippine timezone)
“¢ 1 minute: the supposed time needed to send a mobile remittance
“¢ 0 ““ 2 : number of mobile remittances (Smart Padala, G-Cash) per month at the remittance counter I used
“¢ > 1,000: my estimate of number of regular remittances by the same remittance counter per month. Regular remittance includes Door-to-door, Credit to Bank Account, Pick-up at BDO or EquiPCI Bank or Cebuana Lhuillier
The lady who took my remittance, Lhen, told me that most people still prefer the regular remittance despite the apparent cost savings from mobile remittances.
Lhen tells of two cases where their mobile remittance was below expectations. In one case, a recipient reported that the telecom outlet did not have cash to exchange for the mobile remittance. In another case, the recipient reported that the telecom’s attendant gave a remittance amount P60 short of the full amount.
On the other hand, Lhen recommended the mobile remittance for a client who was too far away from the bayan and was outside the coverage of regular remittance services. In the recipient’s place, there were no banks, no Cebuana Lhuilliers, no motorcycle deliveries but they had a cellphone signal. Ah, we’ve got mobile remittances wherever there’s a cellphone signal!
So much for stories, let’s get some experience.
I handed over the remittance amounts and the additional CAD16 for service charges to Lhen. She tucked away my money and said that the remittance will be sent by their head office. Okay. Sending the remittance was the easy part. Receiving the remittance was another story. Abangan dito sa PTB, we’ll tell you what we went through to receive and encash the remittance.
In the meantime, what do *you* figure from the above quick figures?
Would *you* send a remittance if you were in a Canada OFW’s shoes?
ka edong
the shoe must go on