iKobo Money Transfer

iKobo is a company that specializes in money transfers involving the Philippines. With them, you send money to the Philippines with your Mastercard or Visa. The recipient gets your transfer put onto a secured Visa debit card which can be used worldwide at ATM locations for cash withdrawals. This debit card, which is reusable, is shipped to the recipient first. This is a good option for people that send money to the Philippines on a regular basis.

iKobo is also a good low fee alternative to the larger transfer companies - roughly a quarter of the cost.

Update 08-09-08: The Ikobo money transfer service is very much a worldwide service now. Some of the advantages of their services are:

No agents - everything can be monitored by the sender & recipient online.

With the Ikobo Card (prepaid visa) for the recipient, they are only limited to the amount of ATMs that can be found.

For recurring payments, Ikobo is convenient as after the card is received, future transactions take little time - seconds.