Those fees are exorbitant 😮here in the west 🇦🇺 they don’t even charge that much.
As for the credit/debit savings card I’m not even charged that amount per purchase as it’s my money, not theirs.
Now if it’s just a credit card or credit store card, (borrowed money) that 20 % + amount charged is normally only for interest /default/ monthly payments and ads up per day until paid back. Or if you meant receipt print, that would be possible cents not dollars if that was charged in fees.
⚛️ I have come to the Philippines about 12 times and never used my credit cards for anything day to day > only cash💰⚛️ the funky transaction fees have been my concern ⚛️ cash💰for my last 2 Asian cities too > Singapore 🇸🇬 Korea 🇰🇷 > Hong Kong 🇭🇰 has the Octopus Card which is a great system by topping up value and using it on government transport systems and the supermarket and lots of businesses ⚛️
Ex-banker here……The Credit Card Division is usuallly the most profitable revneue center of a traditional/retail bank. Minimal regulations when it comes to fees and in a territory like the PH its like the wild west. Those local fees have nothing to do with Master card or the VISA fees. You may need to shop around and compare fee structure at different banks, but with the lack of readily available info that too may be a struggle. Using USA based credit cards maybe better…..idk.
I thought I’d pass on my take on credit although I should start by saying I have zero experience with or knowledge of credit in the Philippines. I can only speak of how it is here in the US. It sounds very different there then here because I’m guessing there it’s possible to live without credit and probably many do live without credit. So it may not be as important there as it is here. Here you pretty much can’t get a loan or buy a car or a home without credit. Beyond that it gets used as a way of judging you for other things. Like if you apply for some jobs they might do a credit check on you to determine whether they’ll hire you. Now for most of my life I avoided credit all the way up to my 40’s because I always thought of credit cards as a way of buying thngs you can’t fully afford yet. So I thought that if you can’t afford to buy something in full you should wait and that not using credit or having no credit score was actually better then a low credit score. Now for that part of my life I always rented and buying a new car was beyond my reach and therefore having a credit score didn’t really matter to me. When I got married though and started thinking of buying a new car or a home I learned having no credit was actually considered worse then having bad credit. So I would say to you guys, that you might want to consider holding on to the credit card. Besides having a credit score for big purchases like a house or a card having a credit card can be good for emergencies that might happen at times when you don’t have cash on hand and it might take time before you have cash. Like let’s say one of you became very sick or had a accident and you need to go to the hospital or a see a doctor. In that case waiting until you have money might not be an option. Another way they can be helpful is if you don’t have much in your bank account and you accidentally write a check for more then you have (overdraw your account) You could have it set up to draw any overdrafts from your credit card so you don’t get any overdraft fees from your bank. Now with these print fees and INT fees using credit for overdraft might actually cost more then the bank’s overdraft fee. As long as there are no annual fee there is no penalty to just keeping a credit account open. Although if you never use it then you are also not building up any credit history and therefore you have a low credit score. As Derek knows, here in the west as long as you pay the bill in full before 30 days, there is no cost to using it and if you always do that you’ll build up your credit score with no cost to you other then the cost of whatever you bought. I would say before you decide to cancel the credit card you need to find out how important is it to you to ver have a credit score in the Philippines? If the answer is that it’s not important at all then maybe it’s okay to cancel the card. If however it is important and there may be some point in the future that you need good credit then you might want to hold on to it and just use it a little each month and always pay in full when the bill comes. You’ll obviously have that print fee and INT fee which is bad but if it helps you to get a good credit score it might be worth it? Just limit how much you actually use the card to one or two small purchases per month. Now as to those fees, if the INT fee is interest up front that’s no good, it shouldn’t be allowed to charge interest up front because that takes away any benefit of using the card. To put it another way it means you are guarenteed to always pay more for whatever you buy then if you use cash. That might be accepptable for emergencies that could be life or death but it’s no good if you have enough cash to buy whatever it is you’re buying. As for the print fee, I can only guess what that is. Here in the west everytime you use a credit card there is a small transaction fee of about 2.5% but that is almost always absorbed by the retailer and therefore the customer isn’t charged that. I’m wondering if in the Philippines that print fee is the same as a transaction fee here in the west but instead of the retailer paying it they pass it on to the consumer? That could make sense since probably very few people there own credit cards. Here in the west stores are willing to absorb that small fee because almost everyone has a credit card and by absorbing that fee the stores can greatly increase sales. If very few have credit cards there though then there is almost no incentive for the stores to absorb that cost. I’m not sure though if that fee is the same because it sounded like the percent of the purchase was much higher then just 2.5% One last thing, I wouldn’t give up hope on the car application just yet, I know they told you 3 days but I keep hearing that things move much slower there in the Philippines then in other parts of the world. It not good business to say you’ll do something in 3 days and then take longer but if they did finally come by to do the CI then you might still hear back from them. My guess though is that they’ll say no, because if you needed a co-creator (cosigner) on the bike that’s probably a sign that AI’s credit score is too low, so if that’s how it is on a bike it will likely be the same on a car. My advice would be to find a financial expert that can explain the credit score system there and how important it is or isn’t, maybe a financial expert like an accountant or perhaps someone like a branch manager of a bank you do business with might explain it for free, an accountant might want to charge you? Anyway I hope this helps if in no other way then to get you to consider some things you might not have considered. Sorry it ended up being such a long message. Derek knows from dealing with me in other comments that, that’s how I roll. 😀
Channels
Dating
Beauty of the Philippines 
Caught you two just in time 😊, I’ll watch now😊
Those fees are exorbitant 😮here in the west 🇦🇺 they don’t even charge that much.
As for the credit/debit savings card I’m not even charged that amount per purchase as it’s my money, not theirs.
Now if it’s just a credit card or credit store card, (borrowed money) that 20 % + amount charged is normally only for interest /default/ monthly payments and ads up per day until paid back. Or if you meant receipt print, that would be possible cents not dollars if that was charged in fees.
Sorry seems like it all back to front.😮
🤪🙀😂
⚛️ I have come to the Philippines about 12 times and never used my credit cards for anything day to day > only cash💰⚛️ the funky transaction fees have been my concern ⚛️ cash💰for my last 2 Asian cities too > Singapore 🇸🇬 Korea 🇰🇷 > Hong Kong 🇭🇰 has the Octopus Card which is a great system by topping up value and using it on government transport systems and the supermarket and lots of businesses ⚛️
Ex-banker here……The Credit Card Division is usuallly the most profitable revneue center of a traditional/retail bank. Minimal regulations when it comes to fees and in a territory like the PH its like the wild west. Those local fees have nothing to do with Master card or the VISA fees. You may need to shop around and compare fee structure at different banks, but with the lack of readily available info that too may be a struggle. Using USA based credit cards maybe better…..idk.
I thought I’d pass on my take on credit although I should start by saying I have zero experience with or knowledge of credit in the Philippines. I can only speak of how it is here in the US. It sounds very different there then here because I’m guessing there it’s possible to live without credit and probably many do live without credit. So it may not be as important there as it is here. Here you pretty much can’t get a loan or buy a car or a home without credit. Beyond that it gets used as a way of judging you for other things. Like if you apply for some jobs they might do a credit check on you to determine whether they’ll hire you. Now for most of my life I avoided credit all the way up to my 40’s because I always thought of credit cards as a way of buying thngs you can’t fully afford yet. So I thought that if you can’t afford to buy something in full you should wait and that not using credit or having no credit score was actually better then a low credit score. Now for that part of my life I always rented and buying a new car was beyond my reach and therefore having a credit score didn’t really matter to me. When I got married though and started thinking of buying a new car or a home I learned having no credit was actually considered worse then having bad credit. So I would say to you guys, that you might want to consider holding on to the credit card. Besides having a credit score for big purchases like a house or a card having a credit card can be good for emergencies that might happen at times when you don’t have cash on hand and it might take time before you have cash. Like let’s say one of you became very sick or had a accident and you need to go to the hospital or a see a doctor. In that case waiting until you have money might not be an option. Another way they can be helpful is if you don’t have much in your bank account and you accidentally write a check for more then you have (overdraw your account) You could have it set up to draw any overdrafts from your credit card so you don’t get any overdraft fees from your bank. Now with these print fees and INT fees using credit for overdraft might actually cost more then the bank’s overdraft fee. As long as there are no annual fee there is no penalty to just keeping a credit account open. Although if you never use it then you are also not building up any credit history and therefore you have a low credit score. As Derek knows, here in the west as long as you pay the bill in full before 30 days, there is no cost to using it and if you always do that you’ll build up your credit score with no cost to you other then the cost of whatever you bought. I would say before you decide to cancel the credit card you need to find out how important is it to you to ver have a credit score in the Philippines? If the answer is that it’s not important at all then maybe it’s okay to cancel the card. If however it is important and there may be some point in the future that you need good credit then you might want to hold on to it and just use it a little each month and always pay in full when the bill comes. You’ll obviously have that print fee and INT fee which is bad but if it helps you to get a good credit score it might be worth it? Just limit how much you actually use the card to one or two small purchases per month. Now as to those fees, if the INT fee is interest up front that’s no good, it shouldn’t be allowed to charge interest up front because that takes away any benefit of using the card. To put it another way it means you are guarenteed to always pay more for whatever you buy then if you use cash. That might be accepptable for emergencies that could be life or death but it’s no good if you have enough cash to buy whatever it is you’re buying. As for the print fee, I can only guess what that is. Here in the west everytime you use a credit card there is a small transaction fee of about 2.5% but that is almost always absorbed by the retailer and therefore the customer isn’t charged that. I’m wondering if in the Philippines that print fee is the same as a transaction fee here in the west but instead of the retailer paying it they pass it on to the consumer? That could make sense since probably very few people there own credit cards. Here in the west stores are willing to absorb that small fee because almost everyone has a credit card and by absorbing that fee the stores can greatly increase sales. If very few have credit cards there though then there is almost no incentive for the stores to absorb that cost. I’m not sure though if that fee is the same because it sounded like the percent of the purchase was much higher then just 2.5% One last thing, I wouldn’t give up hope on the car application just yet, I know they told you 3 days but I keep hearing that things move much slower there in the Philippines then in other parts of the world. It not good business to say you’ll do something in 3 days and then take longer but if they did finally come by to do the CI then you might still hear back from them. My guess though is that they’ll say no, because if you needed a co-creator (cosigner) on the bike that’s probably a sign that AI’s credit score is too low, so if that’s how it is on a bike it will likely be the same on a car. My advice would be to find a financial expert that can explain the credit score system there and how important it is or isn’t, maybe a financial expert like an accountant or perhaps someone like a branch manager of a bank you do business with might explain it for free, an accountant might want to charge you? Anyway I hope this helps if in no other way then to get you to consider some things you might not have considered. Sorry it ended up being such a long message. Derek knows from dealing with me in other comments that, that’s how I roll. 😀
Thanks Ai and Derek. Very informative.