Wise pushes for transparency in remittance costs

WISE PHILIPPINES (Wise Pilipinas, Inc.) is working with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to make remittance fees more transparent as part of its goal 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 in a media roundtable last week. He said the company’s push for transparent remittance fees is a group-wide initiative covering the other markets Wise operates in. “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, he said individuals and companies in the Philippines bore P50 billion in losses from foreign exchange markups in 2024. Mr. Cuevas said that they are 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 if 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. Meanwhile, he said they are 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. He added that since the launch of Wise Business in the Philippines last year, they have seen good adoption among entities and individuals that often transact in foreign currencies, including travel agencies and freelancers. — Aaron Michael C. Sy