How to send cash pickup to the Philippines with MAJORITY

MAJORITY sends money to the Philippines by mobile wallet, to GCash or PayMaya. Cash pickup is not a delivery method on this destination, so this page explains what to do instead.

Quick answer

Cash pickup is not available on the Philippines destination with MAJORITY. The method the Philippines supports is mobile wallet, to GCash or PayMaya. To send, open the app, select the Philippines, choose mobile wallet, pick the wallet your recipient uses, and enter the Philippine mobile number that wallet is registered to along with your recipient's full legal name. Your recipient receives Philippine pesos (PHP) converted at our competitive exchange rate, and the app shows the estimated delivery time before you confirm. There is no reference number to pass on, no counter to visit, and no ID to present on the receiving side.

Is cash pickup available in the Philippines with MAJORITY?

No. If you arrived here looking for a way to have somebody collect physical pesos over a counter in the Philippines, that is worth saying plainly before you read any further. MAJORITY does not pay out cash at a counter in the Philippines. There is no pickup location to select in the app, no partner branch to send your recipient to, and no reference number generated for them to quote.

Delivery methods are set per destination rather than globally, so what is offered on one destination tells you nothing about what is offered on another. On the Philippines, the method is mobile wallet. Select the Philippines in the app and mobile wallet is what you are given, and the fields that follow ask about a wallet and a mobile number rather than about a location and an ID type.

The 2 wallets supported on this destination are GCash and PayMaya. Between them they reach most people in the Philippines who receive money from abroad, and a wallet is something your recipient can open on their own phone without going anywhere. That is the practical replacement for a pickup counter, and the rest of this page is about using it.

Key facts about sending to the Philippines

1. Cash pickup is not a delivery method on the Philippines. Mobile wallet is.
2. Your recipient receives the money into their GCash or PayMaya balance, on the phone they already carry.
3. The wallet has to be active and registered to a Philippine mobile number in your recipient's own name.
4. A wallet that has never been verified inside the wallet app carries lower receiving limits. That limit is set by the wallet, not by the transfer.
5. You need 3 details: the wallet, the Philippine mobile number it is registered to, and the full legal name the wallet holds.
6. Payout is in Philippine pesos (PHP), converted at our competitive exchange rate. The app shows the PHP figure your recipient will receive before you confirm, and the app shows the estimated delivery time before you confirm.
7. With a MAJORITY membership you pay a $0 MAJORITY transfer fee, and the Philippines carries no destination fee.

If your recipient needs physical pesos in hand

This is the honest version of the question sitting behind a cash pickup search. Somebody at the other end wants notes rather than a balance, and the reason usually has nothing to do with technology. Rent gets paid in cash. A market stall takes cash. An older relative has never opened a wallet app and has no intention of starting.

What a wallet changes is who does the collecting, and when. Instead of you choosing a pickup point from the US and your recipient travelling to it while it happens to be open, carrying a number you sent them, the money lands in their wallet and they decide what happens next. Turning that balance into notes becomes something they arrange themselves rather than something you arrange for them.

The routes out of a wallet are set by the wallet itself, so the accurate thing to tell your recipient is to look inside their own wallet app. Broadly, a Philippine wallet holder can move the balance into a bank account they already hold, use the cash-out options their wallet offers, or skip the conversion entirely and spend from the wallet, since wallet payment is widely accepted across the Philippines for bills, groceries, phone load, and transport. What matters from your side as the sender is that a recipient who prefers cash is not blocked. They are a step further from notes than they would be at a counter, and that step is theirs to take rather than somebody else's to open up.

If your recipient holds no wallet at all, opening one is the enabling step, and it happens on their phone rather than through anything either of you does on the MAJORITY side. Once they have a wallet and a number to give you, everything else on this page applies.

What your recipient needs on their side

Set against a counter collection, the receiving requirements here are short. There is no ID to present, no reference number to quote, and nobody to queue behind. What there is instead is a wallet that has to be in the right state.

1. An active wallet, GCash or PayMaya. Not one they registered years ago and stopped opening. Ask which of the 2 they actually use, because holding both and checking only one is common.
2. A Philippine mobile number the wallet is registered to. Philippine mobile numbers run to 11 digits beginning 09, or the same number in international form beginning +63 with the leading 0 dropped. Give the app the form it asks for, and copy the number across rather than typing it from memory.
3. A name on the wallet that matches what you enter. Wallets in the Philippines are registered against identity documents, so the name the wallet holds is a legal name. Middle names, second surnames, and married against maiden surnames are where the mismatches come from.
4. Verification completed inside the wallet app. A fully verified wallet receives and holds more than a basic one. Your recipient completes verification in their wallet app using a Philippine government-issued ID such as the PhilSys national ID, a Philippine passport, a driver's license from the Land Transportation Office (LTO), a UMID, or a voter's ID. The accepted list belongs to the wallet, so have them check it there.

If any of the first 3 is wrong, the deposit can be rejected and the money returned to you. Nothing about that is permanent, but it is more work than reading the details back once before you confirm.

Sending to a GCash or PayMaya wallet, step by step

The flow runs through the same money-transfer screen you would use for any destination. What differs on the Philippines is that the delivery method question resolves to mobile wallet, and everything after it asks about a wallet rather than about a place.

1. Open the app and go to the money-transfer entry point on the home screen.
2. Pick the Philippines as the destination country. The app shows mobile wallet as the delivery method for this destination.
3. Choose mobile wallet.
4. Select the wallet your recipient uses, GCash or PayMaya.
5. Enter the Philippine mobile number the wallet is registered to.
6. Enter your recipient's full legal name as the wallet holds it.
7. Enter the amount. Your dollars are converted at our competitive exchange rate and the app shows the PHP figure your recipient will receive.
8. Read the summary. It carries the PHP amount, the wallet, the mobile number, the recipient name, and any cost, and the app shows the estimated delivery time before you confirm.
9. Confirm, then follow the transfer in the app under your transfers view as the status moves from Pending to Completed.

The list stops at 9, and the missing step is the one worth noticing. On a destination where cash pickup exists, that kind of transfer carries on after you confirm, because you still have to pass a number to somebody and they still have to go and use it. This one is finished when you confirm.

Fees and exchange rate on the Philippines

Here is the whole cost picture, and every part of it is visible in the app before you confirm.

• MAJORITY transfer fee, with a MAJORITY membership: $0 on transfers to the Philippines.
• Without a membership, sending on WhatsApp: $1.99 per transfer.
• Membership: $6.99 per month.
• Destination fee on the Philippines: none. Nothing is added for the destination itself.
• Exchange rate: your dollars are converted to Philippine pesos at our competitive exchange rate. The app gives you the result as a PHP figure your recipient will receive, so you review an amount rather than apply a rate.

One charge that appears elsewhere is worth ruling out explicitly. On destinations where cash pickup exists, a cash-pickup charge is added on top. On the Philippines it has nothing to attach to, so it does not appear on a Philippines transfer at any amount.

Choosing between GCash and PayMaya

This is your recipient's call rather than yours. Neither wallet gives you anything the other withholds on the sending side, and the deciding question is simply which one your recipient opens without thinking about it.

4 situations come up often enough to be worth naming.

• They hold both. Ask which one they check. Money sent to the wallet they ignore sits in the wallet they ignore, because the 2 are separate and a deposit to one does not surface in the other.
• They are not sure which they have. Have them open the wallet app on their phone and read you the mobile number the account is registered to. That settles both questions at once.
• They hold neither. They open one, on their own phone. It takes a Philippine mobile number and an ID for verification, and nothing from you.
• They send you a number without saying which wallet it belongs to. Ask rather than guess. A number registered on GCash and not on PayMaya will fail if you send to PayMaya, and the money comes back to you instead of going anywhere useful.

Settling this once, at the start, keeps it from coming up on every transfer afterwards.

What to do next

1. Message your recipient and ask which wallet they use, GCash or PayMaya, and which one they open regularly.
2. Ask them to send you the Philippine mobile number the wallet is registered to and their full legal name as the wallet holds it, in writing rather than over a call, so you have something to read back against.
3. Ask whether the wallet is verified, particularly if the amount is larger than what you usually send.
4. If they have been expecting to collect cash somewhere, tell them what has changed. The money reaches their wallet, and getting it into notes is something they arrange from inside the wallet app.
5. Open the app, select the Philippines, choose mobile wallet, and enter the details. The app shows the PHP amount your recipient will receive, and the app shows the estimated delivery time before you confirm.

Related MAJORITY resources

MAJORITY is a financial membership for migrants and newcomers in the US. On the Philippines destination, the membership supports mobile wallet delivery to GCash and PayMaya in Philippine pesos (PHP). The membership is $6.99 per month and carries a $0 MAJORITY transfer fee on transfers to the Philippines, with the PHP amount your recipient will receive shown in the app before each transfer is confirmed.

To get started directly:

• Send money to the Philippines
• Open an account

Frequently asked questions

Can I send money for cash pickup in the Philippines with MAJORITY?

No. Cash pickup is not a delivery method on the Philippines destination. MAJORITY sends to the Philippines by mobile wallet, to GCash or PayMaya, so there is no pickup location to choose and nobody collects anything over a counter. If your recipient wants cash in hand, the route is to receive the money into their wallet and take it out from there.

Where does the money arrive in the Philippines?

In your recipient's mobile wallet, either GCash or PayMaya, whichever one you select when you set up the transfer. The deposit is addressed to the Philippine mobile number that wallet is registered to, which means it reaches them wherever they happen to be rather than at a fixed location they have to reach.

Do I need a reference number to send money to the Philippines?

No. A reference number is what a counter collection runs on, and there is no counter here. You enter your recipient's wallet, their registered Philippine mobile number, and their full legal name, then confirm. Nothing needs to be passed on to your recipient for them to receive the money, and you can follow the transfer status in the app yourself.

Does my recipient need an ID to receive the money?

Not to receive it. The money arrives in a wallet they already hold, and their identity was checked by the wallet when they registered it. An ID matters only if they still need to complete verification inside their wallet app, which raises their receiving limits. Philippine documents commonly used for that include the PhilSys national ID, a Philippine passport, an LTO driver's license, a UMID, and a voter's ID, though the accepted list is the wallet's to set.

Is there a fee to send money to the Philippines?

With a MAJORITY membership at $6.99 per month, you pay a $0 MAJORITY transfer fee. Without a membership, sending on WhatsApp costs $1.99 per transfer. The Philippines carries no destination fee, and because cash pickup is not offered here, no cash-pickup charge applies either. Your dollars are converted to Philippine pesos at our competitive exchange rate.

What currency does my recipient receive?

Philippine pesos (PHP). The peso figure is worked out from the US dollar amount you send at our competitive exchange rate, and the app puts that figure in front of you before you confirm, so what lands in the wallet is the amount you already reviewed.

Can my recipient turn the money into cash without a bank account?

The money arrives in their GCash or PayMaya wallet, and what they can do with it from there is set by the wallet rather than by MAJORITY. A wallet holder in the Philippines is generally able to spend the balance directly, since wallet payment is widely accepted, or use the cash-out options their wallet offers. Have your recipient check inside their own wallet app for what is available to them.

Disclosures

The MAJORITY app facilitates banking services through Axiom Bank, N.A. ("Axiom"), Member FDIC. The funds deposited in the account held at Axiom, Member FDIC, are FDIC-insured on a pass-through basis up to $250,000 per depositor in the event Axiom fails and subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions. Non-deposit products or services such as money transfers and telecom services are not FDIC-insured.

MAJORITY Visa® Debit Card is issued by Axiom Bank, N.A., Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc.