We will display the present currencies of the Philippines
Note: the 20 Peso coin will start to replace the 20 Peso note
There are many ATM machines available in the bigger cities, however if you go to the smaller places, you better make sure you have sufficient cash with you. A lot of places do not accept creditcards. If you plan to stay for an extended period in the Philippines, you may wish to considder opening a bank account here as the fees charged on international cards, including creditcards can amount to a substantial ammount. What we did, (my hubby and me), was open bankaccounts with two different banks and we transfer money from the Netherlands, via Paypal and Xoom to the philippines. The costs for this are much lower (about 3 dollars compared to 9-11 dollars you pay with overseas cards). The money arrives within minutes in your bankaccount in the Philippines and you can take out twice the amount you can on your Philippine bankcard. For overseas and creditcards the maximum amount you can take out is 10000 peso while local cards let you take out 20000 pesos. for the international cards use you pay 250 peso per transaction (roughly 5 dollars) compared to the local cost 16 peso,(about 30 cents). So if you were to take out 20000 pesos on your overseas or credit card you would pay 10 dollars on fees in the Philippines plus the charges of your creditcard company or bank where ever you are from compared to 30 cents with a local card. We find also that a lot of international cards do not get accepted by ATM machines.