Sadly it is still pretty expensive to do this process. So here are the options I know of and have tried and compared at some point a few of them.

The goal is to transfer Philippine Pesos into Euros in a Spanish bank account. Will set an example wanting 1000 euros to arrive at the destination. Except for BPI where I sent 500 euros.

Transferwise

Also known as Wise now. Owned I believe by Richard Branson, the creator of Virgin Enterprises.

Inside their web, there are 3 options to send money. But the only practical from the Philippines so far is to have them charge your debit or credit card. The other options are for sending from Europe to Europe or other countries.

The basic fee will be 31.42 euros for card charges. They charge your card in the Philippines and deposit it in your Spanish bank.

Case study 1: Transferred 1000 Euro using RCBC credit card cost me 85 euro between RCBC + Exchange + Transferwise. An 8.5% cost is expensive.

Case study 2: Transferred 1000 Euro using BPI credit card cost me 51 Euro between BPI + Exchange + Transferwise. A 5.1% cost seems more reasonable.

Paypal

If you have your Philippine Paypal account connected with your bank account or credit card, you can transfer money to your Spanish Paypal account. You need 2 Paypal accounts for this, one in each country.

They have a conversion rate fee embedded when you input the amounts to send.

43.58 euros added after the currency conversion takes place.

Western Union

Can send from a branch in the Philippines to a branch in Spain. Someone has to be in Spain to pick it up from the branch. It won’t go directly into your bank account.

62.73 euros in fees approx.

Bank International Wire Transfer

Sending directly from your Filipino bank an international money transfer to your Spanish bank.

Checking the BPI web page it says 600php + 0.60php every 200php. So more or less 900php only according to this. What it doesn’t mention is the charges that the receiving bank may do, which may vary depending on the receiving bank.

I tried it just to figure things out by sending 500 euros to Spain and it cost me around 2800php in total with fees of both banks, like 10% of my sent money. Totally too much. Prohibitive. Around 50 euros.

Conclussion

The winner by the mile is Transferwise.

The other advantage of Transferwise is that it can charge a credit card.