Back to blogging by Google

Hey, we're back to blogging. Just migrated this blog over to Google's new Blogger service. (Blogger now belongs to Google.)

Here's the latest on Philpay after a long time of silence. No, we didn't stop our money transfer service while our blog was down. We've extended our services in many ways.

Now we have two separate services:

• www.philpay.com -- provides you with a direct payment facility to overseas recipients/sellers. If you're paying an eBay seller or just want to purchase an item over the internet without using a credit card, use this Philpay service. We provide the following payment facilities:

• Check -- US dollar check drawn from Bank of America (guaranteed funds for 90 days)
• Money Order -- US dollar money order drawn from either Amscot Financial, Moneygram, or USPS (good as cash and may be sent to non-U.S. recipients)
• Paypal -- US dollar online payment direct to your eBay seller or Paypal seller (just provide your recipient's Paypal email address or his checkout URL)

• www.philpay.net -- provides you with an online payment facility to domestic recipients/sellers. If you just want to send money to someone in the Philippines, use this facility. For example, you use G-Cash and your recipient uses Smart Money, Philpay serves as your online link to send money from your G-Cash to your mom's Smart Money. Or, for example, you own an account at Metrobank and your recipient owns an account at Equitable PCI, you don't have to go to Equitable to make a deposit and pay for an over-the-counter regional deposit. Just call Metrobank and make a free over-the-phone transfer to your Philpay account, then go to www.philpay.net and make an online instant transfer to your recipient's Philpay account.
  

Overseas Philpay members may also use their account to make a QuikRemit remittance to any relative or friend in the Philippines. It costs much cheaper than Western Union and may be deposited direct to your recipient's bank account. No more expensive wire transfers. And, your recipient doesn't even have to be a Philpay member (where computers and internet connections are hard to come by).

If you have a comment or suggestion, feel free to submit them below.

Suki Merchant Service

Due to popular request we have now added a merchant service designed solely for Pinoys doing e-commerce. It's called SUKI. With our new Suki merchant service, Pinoy e-ntrepreneurs can now accept Bidpay and PayPal payments from international buyers. Where before, Pinoy e-ntrepreneurs had to risk accepting Bidpay money orders over the mail -- and hoping they could encash the money order in the Philippines, now they can accept Bidpay payments electronically and have the payments immediately converted to Philippine peso and transferred to their Philippine bank accounts. Where before, they could not accept PayPal payments because Philippine residents are prohibited from opening PayPal accounts, now they can accept PayPal payments and have the payments immediately converted to Philippine peso and transferred to their Philippine bank accounts.

So, if you're a Pinoy e-ntrepreneur wondering how on earth you could accept international payment without breaking your budget with over-priced merchant accounts, PhilPay is here for you! With the new Suki merchant service you get the following benefits:

• Ability to accept popular forms of instant payment such as PayPal, Bidpay, and others
• Ability to accept credit card payments thru those payment processors
• Quick convert to Philippine pesos
• Electronic funds transfer to your Philippine bank account or text-based transfer thru G-Cash
  
• No initial setup and monthly maintenance fees
• Lowest overall cost for a merchant account
• Fastest merchant support in the market
• Free merchant tools for sending payment requests to your buyers

Sign up now for a free Suki merchant account!

Local and international PhilPay merchants

Here are some more questions regarding being a merchant for PhilPay:

>Is there a way for a local buyer in the province to pay in cash at a local bank to fund a payment to a Metro Manila merchant via Philpay?

Yes. The same system works for both local and international sellers who have local buyers. Deposits are made to PhilPay's bank accounts and are credited to the merchant's PhilPay account. Local sellers can then cash out by electronic fund transfer to their local bank account or simply receive a check. They can also choose to receive their funds by G-Cash.

> Is there also a way for a local buyer in Metro Manila to pay in cash at a local bank (say... in Mandaluyong) to fund a payment to an international seller via Philpay?

Yes. The same answer as above. In addition, international merchants can cash out from their PhilPay merchant account thru check or bank draft.

>I am studying the applications on PhilPay's ability to send payments via Paypal, as well as curious if Philpay merchants can receive payments via Philpay's Paypal service.

International PhilPay merchants can also choose to cash out thru PayPal. Some of our merchants actually prefer to receive money that way. This is one advantage PhilPay has chosen to take. Instead of competing against PayPal, we have chosen to work along-side PayPal for the benefit of the Filipino online shopper. In the future, we hope to serve also the Filipino e-merchant who has no way of accepting payments from PayPal users.

PhilPay

New Methods at PhilPay

New Payment Methods

Finally, due to request from many of our users, PhilPay now offers the following methods to pay your sellers:

• PayPal - on eBay this is still the most preferred payment method
• Bank draft - available in the following major currencies:


• Australian Dollar (AUD)
• British Pound (GBP)
• Canadian Dollar (CAD)
• European Euro (EUR)
• Hong Kong Dollar (HKD)
• Japanese Yen (JPY)
• Singapore Dollar (SGD)
• US Dollar (USD - Not Available)
  

• Check - now you can send a US check to any country, not just the US

New Funding Method

If you are a Union Bank account holder, you may now fund your PhilPay payment thru our eOn Cyber account. On your desktop, it's now the fastest and most convenient funding method available to PhilPay users.

No Fees for PhilPay Users!

Now you can send your payments thru PhilPay at absolutely no extra cost! Just look for PhilPay's logo at any auction or website. Customers of all registered PhilPay merchants enjoy the following benefits:

• Absolutely no fees
• Shortest forms to fill
• Quick same-day processing

To enjoy these benefits at non-PhilPay websites, just invite your favorite seller to sign up for a PhilPay merchant account.

How to stay up-to-date

Want to stay up-to-date on new PhilPay offers and services? Here's how:

• Bookmark our new blog at http://philpay.blogspot.com
• Add our instant XML feed from http://philpay.blogspot.com/atom.xml

If you don't have an RSS- or XML-reader, you can download a FREE reader from Feedreader.

Tell your friends

Now you can also tell your friends about PhilPay by simply clicking on an envelop icon at our blog site (see below). Let them know that they can use PhilPay at any auction or e-shop on the net. No need for credit cards, and no membership needed.

How to fund payments

On this blog, I hope to post some Q&A from some of our site visitors and thereby help some of you find out more about doing online payments thru PhilPay.

Dear M--,

Thanks again for your inquiry. Here are the answers to your questions:

>Does one have to have a Union Bank account to pay via eOn Cyber Account?

No. But you have to at least have an e-On Cyber account with Union Bank.

>If you say one can use the latter to pay online, does it mean that I can use a credit card there?

No. At the moment, you cannot use a credit card to fund your payment thru PhilPay. It is online because e-On transactions can only be done online or on the ATM.

>What's the cheapest way to pay - Union Bank, eOn Cyber Account or Globe G-Cash?

There are no fees involved when you fund your payment thru either Union Bank or e-On. There is a P10.10 fee for the first P1,000 that we charge when you pay thru G-Cash.

>Di ba some Paypal users can accept credit card payments from non-Paypal users? Maybe you can pay the seller through Paypal using your credit card. Have you looked into this?

Unfortunately, much of what PayPal claims regarding accepting credit card payments online is not true. We would call it "deceptive advertising." If you go to a merchant that accepts credit cards thru PayPal, you will not be able to simply enter your credit card details as you checkout. Why? Because PayPal accepts credit card payments only through your own PayPal account. In other words, you have to sign up for a PayPal account in order to make that card payment. And their sign up process is extremely restrictive and tedious. To make it worse, Philippine residents are banned from PayPal by policy. Forget PayPal. Instead, we hope to offer PhilPay to Philippine residents. Our vision is to make online shopping possible for most Philippine residents -- whether you have a credit card or not. Our goal is to make PhilPay extremely Filipino-friendly.

PhilPay

No credit card needed

This is a test blog. But maybe it's not a test. Wanna see how this whole thing works and how it would be of benefit.

This blog is about not having a credit card to make payments online. What a bummer. And especially for Philippine residents whose credit cards can sometimes not be acceptable on US websites. And think about this, PayPal does not accept residents of many countries. For what reason? They say it's security. But who really knows. The Philippines is one of those countries not accepted on PayPal. So how do we do eBay?

Too bad. So here's to PhilPay -- a Philippine answer to online shopping.