Dollar cheques

I found out yesterday that banks actually allow dollar cheques to be deposited to local currency accounts. Specifically Banco de Oro, they accepted my dollar cheque. It will be deposited to my peso ATM account. However, there’s a transaction fee of $3.00 and will take more or less 28 days.

I presume that other banks have the same policy with BDO. But then again, for faster transactions, better have your payments via Western Union Quick Cash (for Adsense). If you really want cheques (some prefer it to encourage “saving”), have the amount converted to your local currency. In that way, it will only take 3 days clearing time.

Adsense Google Cheque

I received my Adsense cheque for the month of March yesterday. God, why a cheque? A dollar cheque at that. For Pinoy newbies (like me) in Adsense payments, having your payments via dollar cheques is quite a headache. Why?

1. First, in order to deposit a dollar cheque (Deposit is the right term and not “encash.” Adsense cheques are not to be encashed. They are to be deposited.) you must have an active dollar account on any bank here in the Philippines. If your cheque though is in local currency, you can deposit it at your peso account in any local bank and in 3 days time, the money is in.
2. Before Banco de Oro offers an initial deposit of $100.00 for a dollar account. But now, the minimum initial deposit is $200.00. Still less compared to other banks like Citibank. One “adsenser” though stated mentioned in a post that LandBank requires only $100.00. I’ll confirm it first. This only means that, you need to have extra dollars before you can open up an account so that you can directly deposit your dollar cheques.Once you have deposited your cheque on your dollar account, it takes more than 20 days for most banks to clear the cheques. This is bad especially when you need the money right away.