This podcast episode (Secret Sauce of Outsourcing, ep. 177) answers a listener's question about paying Filipino virtual assistants who lack traditional bank access. John Jonas and JAM explain that many rural or island areas only have small banks or cooperatives without SWIFT codes, preventing international transfers and blocking services like Wise or Payoneer. As a result, Filipino VAs often prefer PayPal because it provides visible confirmation of received funds and can be linked to GCash, a widely-used mobile wallet in the Philippines. The hosts recommend alternatives: using PayPal-to-GCash, EasyPay (used by OnlineJobs.ph), or creating online savings accounts with banks that have SWIFT codes (BPI, CIMB, UnionBank) via the GCash app so international payrolls (Gusto, Wise, EasyPay) can be received.
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Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at outsourcing to the Philippines. This is episode 177 explaining the Philippines banking system. So Jonathan emailed me an interesting question I think is relevant to most people hiring ofs. It'll give us some good insight into what banking is like in the Philippines. He says, hey, do you have a blog post on banking? One of my ofs doesn't have a bank account, says there isn't a bank on their island. They primarily use PayPal. However, we process all of our payments through Gusto, which aligns our accounting nicely and I'm not going to deviate from that. Do you have any articles that might be helpful? So I actually love that you are using whatever you're using and it aligns nicely with your accounting and you're not going to deviate. And that's sweet. That's how we are too. We use EasyPay with OnlineJobs PH and when someone new comes in and they're like, oh, I want to be paid through wise, we're like, sorry, we don't have a Wise account and we are going to pay you through Easy Pay because that's how we do all of our accounting and it just works really well for us. So let's. I actually went to jam. One of my. One of my ofs asked him about the Philippines banking system. Like, what? Why do they not have a bank account? Why is there not a bank there? So here's what, here's what JAM has to say about this. If the VA is living in a rural or agricultural area or small island, the only bank available would likely be a small rural bank or a cooperative. Most small banks are not connected to the network with international banking access, which means the bank would not have a SWIFT code, making international bank transfers impossible, which I'm going to add to this. If they don't have a SWIFT code, then you can't use. You can't use Wise, you can't use payoneer, you can't. It's just not going to work. The advantage of using PayPal is it would also allow him to transfer funds from his PayPal account to GCash. GCash is like our Venmo. We can use it anywhere and it can easily be converted to cash. So I didn't know about this. You search GCash and it is like, yeah, it's like their Venmo, but it's accepted everywhere. It's kind of like WeChat in China, where you use WeChat to chat with your friends, but you also use it to pay at restaurants and to do everything else that you're gonna do. GCash is it's. It's cool. Jam continues. Another reason why the OFS is asking for payments through PayPal is because Filipino workers have learned to mistrust employers who quote pay using direct bank transfers. It's widely circulated among the VA and freelancing communities that some scammers will say they will send a bank transfer to pay for work and there was none. The scammers will then send a fake screenshot showing the alleged bank transfer successful receipt. As a result, many have recommended avoiding employers that pay using direct bank and wire transfers. Using PayPal protects the worker because they get to see if the transfer did go through. So that's kind of a common thing here in the US Like a bank transfer is part of scams. Anytime I post something on ksl, which my kids do almost every day because it's part of their business, they get texts from scammers saying hey, I'm going to transfer you the money. So that's, that's understandable why through a direct bank transfer isn't. Isn't preferred but wise or easy pay or you know, it's. That's less. It's less of an issue than a direct bank transfer. So jam continues. But looking at gusto, it's understandable that paying through PayPal will be difficult. I recommend asking the VA to create an online savings account instead. And this is where this gets really cool. So a BPI bank of the Philippines island or CIMB Commerce International Merchant Bankers savings account from One of those two banks can be created through the GCash app. They can also open an online union bank account. They don't have to go to an actual bank to do this. And these banks have active swift codes. So in the Philippines you can set up an online bank account that can receive payments from easy pay. Gusto wise, whatever. You don't have to have a bank to do it. You can open it through GCash, which you can get the payment into your bank account and then transfer it to your GCash which you can instantly then use to to buy things. It's a really good option@onlinejobs.ph we have people all over the country. We have people in Manila and Cebu and kzone City. We also have people in really rural areas without banks close by and they are all. We pay them all through easy pay can all receive payments. I'm not actually sure how they handle their payments on the back end. I'm not sure if they use GCASH or if they. I don't know what they do, but it works for us.
