Top Apps Every Expat Should Download

Moving to the Philippines? Make life easier with these must-have apps!

From transportation to shopping and banking, these tools will help you settle in faster.

Several of these apps will only be available in the Google Play or Apple App Store if you are using an account that has Philippines listed as your residential address. In order to do this on my Android / Samsung, I had to create a new Google / GMail account with the address listed as my house address in the Philippines. Then, I had to add that account to my phone and log into Google Play with the new account. Then, I could install the PH-based apps. GCash was one of the apps that could only be installed with this type of Google account.

Any of the wallet or shopping apps require a Philippines phone number. We’ll do a blog post on the best way to do this—especially if you want it to be permanent.

1. Grab — Ride-hailing, food delivery, and courier service in one app.

I’ve had the Grab app installed on my phone since 2018 when Uber Singapore was sold to Grab—I used to live in Singapore. I use it for ride hailing and occasionally to order food; however, in the Philippines, it only works in the urban areas. Most of the areas mentioned in Discover The Top 10 Expat-Friendly Cities In The Philippines has Grab drivers available. If you are out in the rural provinces, Grab isn’t going to find available drivers. If drivers are available, the app is fairly reliable.

In the rural provinces, the taxi options will typically be tricycles. Note, you might want to bring a cushion to sit on.

Other options in the rural provinces include:

• Scheduled passenger vans
• Jeepneys
• Private car service company
• Often you can find private (and licensed) taxi drivers who will drive several hours out-of-town for a fee (typically reasonably priced).
• Buy your own car / motorcycle.

The options differ by region.

Most areas have a scheduled van service that drives common routes every day. These can be a couple of hours late on the days when you have a flight in a few hours. So, may not be something you want to rely upon when it is important. If you are “american” sized (including just really tall), this may be an uncomfortable experience.

Jeepneys usually are found in the Urban areas, but may be found nearby. These are typically reasonably priced. If you are “american” sized (including just really tall), this may be an uncomfortable experience. Likewise, this may not make sense if you have a lot of luggage / stuff with you..

Private car service companies typically have websites. I’ve used one once. These tend to be expensive, but is usually a reliable option if nothing else is available.

I’ve been using the same private taxi driver for a couple of years now to go to / from the closest airport.

If you are going to buy your own vehicle, a new one is probably the safest option. The legal and technical (lifetime tracking) framework that makes the used car market relatively safe in the USA isn’t present in the Philippines. It is common to see a used car for sale that hasn’t had the recommended maintenance applied throughout the car’s lifecycle. If you do buy a used car in the Philippines, have a trusted mechanic look at it and give it a test drive.

2. GCash/Maya — Mobile wallet for cashless payments, bills, and transfers.

I have a GCash account, but it took a dozen+ registration attempts before I got past their video selfie registration process.

As a foreigner, you are going to need your passport. You may also need an ACR or other local identification card with an address listed on it.

After the initial application process, it took about three weeks for my personal account to be approved. I had actually given up on GCash to be an option and started trying to register for Maya. Then, I received an email stating that my GCash account had been approved. I did a test transfer into it of 500PHP ($9 USD) from my Wise.com account (which has the ability to transfer into Philippines-based wallet apps including GCash, Maya, and ShopeePay). The transfer was successful; within minutes of the Wise.com app stating that my transaction was successful, the GCash app announced the money had been received. So, far; so, good.

About twenty four hours later, I got anotice email from GCash stating that my account had been locked and needed to be reviewed. I was able to open a support ticket, but it was not at all obvious how to do it. I was eventually informed through the support ticket that a transaction needed to be reviewed by some back office team. I checked back a couple of times. There wasn’t any change in the ticket status or indication of what was happening. After about two weeks, I received a notice saying that my account was cleared and my access was restored. So, that was two+ weeks to review a transaction wherein I transfered in 500PHP from my own account. They never actually told me which transaction was the problem or what the problem actually was, but there was only one transaction; so, by process of elimination…

For the Maya app, I attempted to go through their registration process ten+ times. Each time the application process was rejected, I had to call their call center. They asked a number of questions in the KYC process that GCash did not including details of the source of income. If you report that you are self-employed, there are a limited number of predefined options for additional questions. I went through several combinations of those predefined options (none of which made any real sense) and each was the reason for my rejection. At the end of each call, I was told to try registering again. Once I had the GCash account working, I stopped pursuing setting up a Maya account. My experience has been that GCash is more common than Maya. If I encounter a need for it in the future, I will figure out the process.

For the ShopeePay wallet, my application process was similar. But, it was eventually approved.

I suppose, most people wouldn’t have the wherewithal to attempt to reapply for a wallet app account 10+ times, but I really wanted to successfully create accounts with these wallet apps both for the convienence and to develop the process for E636 Expat Services.

These wallet apps give you a bank and bank account number to do SWIFT wire tranfers to if needed. That’s an expensive funding option, but you’ve also created a situaton where you have a foreign bank account that needs to be reported under FACTA and FBAR rules in the USA. Several other western countries have similar disclosure rules regarding for foreign bank accounts. For the USA, these disclosure rules apply to citizens and permenent residents (green card holders). If you are not familiar with these rules for your country, speaking with a qualified account, tax lawyer, or both is strongly recommended. These rules are complex and the penalties for failing to comply are significant. Don’t let this dissuade you from using these apps, but you need to plan ahead to ensure compliance.

For Americans (citizens of the USA), initiating an international wire transfer from you commercial bank website, especially if you’ve never done it before, will likely result in a blocked transfer and a call to / from your bank’s fraud department. This is doubly true for transfers to countries with a hire rate of this type of fraud (that for another post). UK citizens will have similar issues with some of the recent laws that have been passed there. I don’t have experience with other countries to say anything specific, but assume that you will have issues that will add delays and complexity to the process.

It’s important to remember that these banks are attempting to protect their customers and / or their own liability for potential loses due to fraud. There are reasons they are doing this; so, make sure you know who you are transferring money to internationally. If you know you are transferring money to your own account at a foreign bank (financial institution) and you are the one who opened that account, this shouldn’t be fraud. To lesson the impact of regular commercial bank processes regarding international processes for private citizens a reputable, online money transfer service such as wise.com (formerly, TransferWise) or Revolut could be used to handle your money transfers. These options have their own potential issues, but most of the issues that are commonly discussed online fall into a couple of categories that can be avoided (or at least addressed) after the fact. You can find discussions of these issues in Reddit subreddits dedicated to the respective companies. Obviously, if you fail KYC / AML processes, you will lose access to your account or not get an account setup at all. If used efficiently, these services can save a lot of money in fees and FOREX conversion fees.

Given the potential issues with these types of money transfer services, it’s a good idea to avoid single points of failure in your finance infrastructure and have accounts available in at least two with all of your transfer-to accounts defined in each. Occasionally, using the secondary account to ensure your transfers are still working and create “regular” transaction history is recommended.

US-based banks tend to have notable fees associated with sending or receiving SWIFT wire transfers. For my bank, the fees range between $15 - $30USD.

If you are not familiar with or not comfortable with international wire transfers, you might want to consider going into your bank and having a personal banker help you set up the transfer. Or, do a test transfer with a small amount of money. I usually do $100USD. Now, there will be additional fees with sending the test transfer, some people may not like that, but weigh that against potentially losing money by making a mistake in the transfer setup.

At the start of the month, I pay myself from my business by transferring money from a US business checking account into my personal checking account. Some of that money is then transferred into a wise.com account. From there, I transfer money into my Philippines-based personal checking account. From that account (using the banking app), I transfer money into GCash and ShopeePay wallets. There usually isn’t any drama with this process—though, there have been some notable occasions. I’ve found that Wise.com will sometime allow a couple thousand USD transferred via ACH (the most cost effective option to get USD into the account from inside the USA) to be available immediately. Other times, it takes six days. I’ve asked for an explanation of this difference in times from support tickets, but always get a generic answer back that doesn’t really address the specific delay.

3. Google Maps/Waze — Navigation and traffic updates.

From my cybersecurity consulting days, I’m compelled to call out the potential privacy issues with Google, but that isn’t really what we are here to talk about. I will point out that there are alternatives to Google Apps. Whether or not they will work in the Philippines depends.

Most people will be happy using Google Maps and / or Waze.

4. Lazada / Shopee — Online shopping for almost everything.

You will need a Philippines phone number to setup either of these apps.

For Shopee, I use the ShopeePay wallet. I talk about that earlier in this post.

For Lazada, I use my GCash account to pay through the app.

Cash On Delivery (COD) is an option for both shopping apps, but that can limit the amount you can order and which sellers you can order from. It also requires you to be home when your package arrives.

Many areas in the rural provinces do not have official street addresses. You’ll provide the province, city, borangay, and zip code. There might be a street name if you are on a major street, but you won’t have a number. My home doesn’t have an official physical address. The local delivery driver will call the number and ask for you to confirm where your home is, come to a major road to meet him / her, or will remember where you live from the last trip. Our Shopee delivery driver went to high school with my girlfriend; he tends to just drop the packages of at her parents house near his home—I’ve asked him to not do that several times. It keeps happening.

5. Angkas / JoyRide — Motorcycle taxies for faster commutes in traffic-heavy areas.

I do not personally fit on the little scooter motorcyles they use for these taxi services here. I’ve never used them and have never ridden on a motorcycle. I will say that the Grab app has perfectly reasonable prices in the Philippines.

If you feel the motorcycle taxi option makes sense for you, then by all means use these apps.

Thinking of Moving to the Philippines? Get Reliable Guidance.

Online communities are helpful for general questions. For anything important, you still need accurate, professional, and updated information. E636 Expat Services helps foreigners with:

• Residency and long term visas
• Bank account opening
• Health insurance guidance
• Real estate assistance
• Business setup
• Retirement planning
• A smooth and secure transition into life in the Philippines

If you want to move with confidence instead of relying on random comments online, we can guide you every step of the way.

Book a consultation with E636 and start your journey the right way.

Photo by JJ Ying on Unsplash