Tips on Sending Money Online

February 3, 2020 – It’s 2020. Soon there will be another “mega sale” from our favorite online store. Browsing Facebook? Someone’s selling an item you’ve been looking for a long time and he’s the only one selling it. Okay, so my mother called and there’s an emergency at home. Bank transfer is a pain for them, so I have to send money online via one of the e-wallets.

I now live in a world where shopping online is unavoidable, a world where sending money online is just the norm. But even though I’ve done this task hundreds of times, I’m still always cautious when transferring money online. From checking the right url to the right destination address, below are some tips I’ve found online to safeguard us during online money transfers.

Decide What Mode of Transfer to Use

I’m speaking specifically about sending money to someone else online. First decide on what e-wallet, bank, or mode of transaction to use. Do you want to use a remittance center? Maybe a bank transfer? But that will take 3 days sometimes.

Check Out the Fees

Every mode of money transfer has a corresponding fee. Take that into account. For example, do you want the “fee” to be deducted on the amount you sent? Or perhaps you want to pay the fee yourself so that the receiver of the money receives the entire amount in full?

Make Sure Your Device and the Browser you are using are safe?

If you are going to send money via your mobile phone, make sure your phone is free from viruses and malware. If via desktop, check out if the website is secure.

Use a Strong Password

If you are using an e-wallet or even your online banking account, make sure your password is complex and strong. Password theft is very common and it is important that your accounts on financial websites (like your bank account) should use the strongest password you can think of.

Make Sure You Send the Correct Amount

Most of the time when transferring money online, it falls to yourself to make sure you are sending the correct amount. If you fail to send the correct amount, sometimes it will be extremely difficult to have the excess amount returned. It will involve calling your bank or the e-wallet provider. If you use GCash or Paymaya, then expect the same kind of customer service you receive from a telco company.

Actually, sending money is complicated in the backend. Us consumers only see the money being sent and being received. It’s this complication that’s the reason why there are exorbitant fees. You might want to consider transferring using cryptocurrency. If you are here in BitPinas, chances are you know that transferring crypto is cheaper. For example, using XRP in transferring is really cheap. Unfortunately, cashing out will still involve fees, albeit cheaper than your regular bank or remittance transfer. If you can find a way to send crypto and then the receiver will receive the amount in Peso, you can save more. This is incredibly efficient for cross border transfer (sending money to the Philippines). In this scenario, let us use Coins.ph:

1. If you have Bitcoin, convert it to XRP first.
2. Transfer XRP to your Coins.ph account.
3. Convert that XRP to Peso.
4. Send to the receiver.

To save more, make sure the receiver makes the most out of their Coins.ph account. For example, instead of cashing out to pay their electricity bill, they should take advantage of the fact that they can pay their electricity bills within the app. In that way, they will only cash out the amount they really need.

This article is published on BitPinas: Tips on Sending Money Online

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