Foreword: I’m publishing this blog in the midst of NCOV-19 crisis. I know it’s a bit untimely because I , even myself, cancelled my travel this summer and I advised everyone to do the same. But this blog has been on my backlog for a long time. And I’m publishing this with hope that few months after, this pandemic will be over and our medical experts would discover the cure to combat this virus. Few months after, we will be able to travel again without fear and this blog would finally serve it’s purpose. Let’s pray and be healthy wherever you are.

It’s been months after we went to Taiwan and I remember that on that time, I had a hard time researching for the best ways to exchange Philippine pesos to Taiwan NTD. There are youtube vlogger discussing one way another and I did find few blogsite but most of them were old. I don’t know, maybe I didn’t search enough. But just in case, you are having a hard time too, I decided to write my own experience and discoveries on the ways to exchange Philippine Peso to Taiwan NTD and compare it to one another. The process might apply to other currencies as well but this experience is particular for Taiwanese Dollars.

How to Measure if the Exchange Rate is Good?

To buy Taiwan Dollars, the lower the selling exchange rate the better. So we will compare these ways base on their selling exchange rate. Searching through google as of this writing, 1 NTD would be equal to 1.69 Philippine Peso. Let’s see which of the following ways would offer the best exchange rate.

TWD vs. NTD: Taiwan Currency

First of all, when it’s your first time to travel in Taiwan, you may be confused of the two currency being used which are TWD and NTD. They are actually the same in terms of Tawain Currency. It’s just TWD is being used more in more serious note like foreign exchange rates. NTD is more of international English name of Taiwanese currency. But their value is the same.

Option 1: Thru BDO Bank:

This option is one of the best because of low exchange rate. But this is only applicable if you still have at least a month left before your departure time. As of this writing the selling exchange rate for BDO is
1.71. If you want to check the current buy exchange rate, go to this BDO forex link: https://www.bdo.com.ph/mobile/forex

So if you exchange PHP 5000 to Taiwan Dollars in BDO, that would be 2,923.97 TWD. (Computation: 5000 divided by 1.71)

Here are the important notes on how to exchange by BDO.

1. Currencies other than USD are available in selected BDO branches only. Please click here to view list of selected branches.

2. You can only exchange money on the BDO branch where you have a bank account. So if your branch is not on this list here , it’s out of the options.

3. When you are ready to exchange your money at the BDO branch, you need to bring your passport and itinerary. It’s important to know that Taiwan dollars is most probably not readily available at your branch. So the estimate for your Taiwan dollars to arrive will usually take 2 to 3 weeks after you visited your branch.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: We only learned about this method within the week of our departure. I visited the BDO in Picadilly BGC branch and was informed that there were a lot of requirements. I don’t have a BDO account in this branch and we couldn’t wait for 2 to 3 weeks anymore. So we were not able to use this method. So I conclude, this is a good way to exchange PHP to TWD but it is inconvenient and would require a lot of time.

Option 2: Thru a Money Changer

The second option would be the nearest money changer in your area. But this require a little research since money changer sites have different exchange rates. In our experience, I exchanged money in Kabayan BGC Branch. They update their Facebook page on the current exchange rates and respond quickly in our inquiries. At that time, we chose this because it somewhat lesser in other options that we had.

TIP: Message them in Facebook first to ensure when they have Taiwanese Dollar in the nearest branch . Unlike the first option, it only takes one day. This is the private message that I had with Kabayan. At that time, 1.85 is the selling rate. We exchanged 15,000 for me and my friends.

So for example, if you have PHP 5000 , this will be equal to 2,702.70 Taiwanese dollars. (Computation 5000 divided by 1.85)

Option 3: Exchange money in Taoyuan Airport

You can also bring your Philippine peso in Taiwan and exchange it on the money changer in Taoyuan Airport itself. There are two banks which has money changer kiosk in Taoyuan which operate for 24 hours. You can ask anywhere and they would consistently say this option has the least competitive rate. However, it offers convenience and security as it is readily available in the airport.

Personal Experience: My friend decided to exchange his P3000.00 in Bank of Taiwan Money Changer kiosk. At that time of our travel, the selling rate was 1.9354. So he got 1,550.00 Taiwan Dollars. You can also view this on my vlog at 00:11.

So for further comparison, PHP 5000 would be equal to 2,583.4 Taiwan Dollars.

To see the current exchange rate, this is the forex website of two banks in Taoyuan airport.
Bank of Taiwan: https://rate.bot.com.tw/xrt?Lang=en-US .
Megabank: http://rate.megabank.com.tw/bulletin02_02.asp

Take note that this site displays Taiwan to other currency rates so you should look for PHP buy exchange rate and multiply it to your Philippine Peso.

Option 4: Withdraw in Taiwan ATM

You can also bring your local debit mastercard or credit card in Taiwan and withdraw in Taiwan ATM. Since the pocket money I brought was not enough, I had the chance to use this option as well. The exchange rate depends of the bank. You should also take note that aside from the exchange rate, each bank has it’s fee which will be deducted on top of your withdrawal.

Some important notes:

1. Your card should bear a mastercard or visa card.

2. Before traveling abroad, call your bank to enroll your account in international withdrawal to avoid the risk blocking of your account. Here’s some details for BPI. https://www.bpiexpressonline.com/p/1/866/international-access .

3. There’a fee for every single withdrawal abroad. For BDO, refer to https://www.bdo.com.ph/personal/accounts/atm-debit-cards/limits-fees.
For BPI: https://www.bpiexpressonline.com/p/1/1916/fees. As of this writing, they were both 3.50 USD.

Personal experience: I used my BPI card to withdraw P1500.00 NTD. It’s not hard to withdraw in Taiwan as ATM have available English translation. When I checked my statement, it charged me a total of P2687.00. Subtracting a total of 180.00 from international withdrawal fee, then that would be P2507.

Computing the exchange rate I had with using BPI ATM card, that would be

2507/1500=1.67

And if we are going to exchange our PHP5000, it will be 2,994 NTD.

To summarize the exchange rate of four options:

1. Bank: 1.71
2. Money Change:1.85
3. At Taoyuan Airport:1.9354
4. International ATM Witdrawal: 1.67— the best

CONCLUSION

With these four options, I would say International ATM withdrawal is the best. But you should not rely entirely with ATM withdrawal. I believe it would be best to have cash on-hand as well before flying to any different countries. So for me the best is to exchange a lesser portion of you pocket money from Bank then for the larger portion withdraw it in Taiwan. In case something went wrong online, you won’t be empty-handed.

That’s all folks! I think we can all agree that the start of 2020 is a bit stressful. Let’s pray together that in the second quarter , the world will trample the pandemic crisis. I’m positive all of this will be over.

Before I end this blog I would also like to invite you to be my International Blogger Friend. The idea is to invite everyone in blogosphere and have at least one friend in each country so that means at least 195 blogger friends. It’s not limited to wordpress blogger, or to blogsite platforms. If you are a Instagram blogger, facebook or youtuber, you are welcome! For more details, you can check out my About Page here.

Thank you in advance!

Remember, you are awesome and wonderfully made,

GUREZU

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