A day or two ago, my mom and my grandma went to a nearby branch to withdraw from my grandma’s account. My grandma opened the account in the province, but she now stays with an uncle here in Manila. There is usually a charge if you are depositing into someone else’s account and only if it happens to be an inter-branch account, but I have never heard of a bank charging an account holder for withdrawing fund from another branch. The heck! If I had been there, that bank manager would have had an earful from me! Anyway, back to the main point. There shouldn’t be any charges for existing clients when they make withdrawals from any branch, regardless if that branch were in Timbuktu. Even Cirrus charges are at USD 3.50 only!
As a former banker, I also know that managers can choose to waive a processing fees for certain transactions. I had once tried to speak with another officer from another PNB branch when my mom was sending allowances for my youngest aunt’s tuition (she’s only about 4 years older than I am as my mom is the eldest). As I was working at a bank then and knowing that it was going to be a regular thing, I asked the manager how those fees could be waived. She said she needed a deposit of around 100k or so. So the mathematician in me did some fast calculations and I came up with 65k as the needed deposit so that the income from the deposit account would cover the ‘cost’ of the transaction fees. That bank personnel then raised an eyebrow, thinking how a kid could come up with that figure. Hehehe… First job - banker. I also asked her (the bank person) if the computation was right, she was adamant to answer and I don’t think she even gave me answer then.
On their website, PNB had posted this article on 7/28/2006: PNB still the choice bank of Global Filipinos for traditional OFW remittances. Of course, they’d be the choice! They have the farthest reach in terms of provinces served. As if the people in the provinces have any other choice!
Another point is that it took two days for the fund to finally be withdrawn and they had the gall to charge a transaction fee of 2.5%! What insolence! My mom already had a splitting headache that day and decided not to push the issue. I told her to bring me along, with my innocent smile, the next time when we decide to *close* that account.
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