Wise Philippines (Wise Pilipinas, Inc.) is working with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to make remittance fees more transparent, part of the company's broader effort to help Filipinos reduce the cost of sending money.

"We are in heavy discussions with the BSP on how to ensure that local participants or local banks in the Philippines show transparent rates whenever their customers do a remittance transaction," Wise Philippines Country Manager Areson I. Cuevas said at a media roundtable last week.

He noted that the company's push for transparent remittance fees is a group-wide initiative covering the other markets in which Wise operates. The push comes against a globally recognized cost problem: World Bank tracking has put the worldwide average cost of sending $200 at more than 6% of the amount sent, far above the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal target of bringing remittance costs below 3% by 2030. Wise, formerly TransferWise, has built its business on charging upfront fees and applying the mid-market exchange rate, making price transparency central to how it competes with banks and traditional money transfer operators.

"If you're talking about the bottlenecks, it's really ensuring that the BSP or any other global or country central banks listen to our call to make sure that customers know what they are paying for when they do their remittances," he said.

Citing internal data, Mr. Cuevas said individuals and companies in the Philippines absorbed P50 billion in losses from foreign exchange markups in 2024. The figure underscores the scale of the money flows involved: BSP data show personal remittances from overseas Filipinos reached $38.34 billion in 2024, equivalent to about 8.4% of the country's gross domestic product, keeping the Philippines among the top remittance-receiving economies in the world.

Wise is specifically pushing for stricter implementation of BSP Circular 952 Series of 2017, which requires all central bank-supervised institutions to charge domestic remittance or transfer fees upfront with appropriate disclosure to the sender.

Asked whether there are issues with the circular, he said: "I cannot comment on that because we are working with the regulators on that. But I would say that we are pushing for more transparency in the industry. And that circular supports our cause for more transparency."

"The BSP is very forward-looking. They already have a list of, I believe, seven data points of what they require financial institutions to disclose when you remit funds. So, there's already a rule on that. We just want to make sure that we implement the rule and the industry players are aware or familiar that the rule exists. It really promotes transparency," Mr. Cuevas said.

Beyond fees, Wise is also working to make Apple Pay available to holders of its Wise card, after being one of the first institutions to support Google Pay upon its launch in the Philippines in November last year.

Mr. Cuevas added that since Wise Business launched in the Philippines last year, it has seen good adoption among entities and individuals that frequently transact in foreign currencies, including travel agencies and freelancers.

No timeline was given for either the conclusion of the transparency discussions with the BSP or the rollout of Apple Pay support, leaving the enforcement of the disclosure rules and the wallet integration as the developments next in view.

Source: Bworldonline | Reporting by Aaron Michael C. Sy