Connecting Filipinos to Home While Working Abroad

Remittances allow families worldwide to both extend their reach and network as well as find new opportunities abroad while still retaining a home and connection to a birthplace. The idea of going outside of one’s borders to find better income opportunities and then sharing that income with those left behind is not new.

For centuries, people have traveled abroad because of the difference between a destination versus what is available as an opportunity where one was born or has roots. However, our digital world today is making it quite possible to move funds earned much faster, in fact in minutes or seconds versus the days or weeks it took before.

For workers from the Philippines, opportunities in other parts of Asia, as well as Australia, have been commonplace and almost expected for anyone who has the option to work overseas and can take advantage of it. It’s a tough path, however.

One is separated for months, even years, from regular contact with family and friends, but their commitment makes it possible for the family back home to be taken care of properly, even grow and achieve an improvement in life due to the bonuses achieved by currency differences between home and abroad.

Digital tools have also made staying connected easier; many Filipinos working abroad run through a daily ritual of phone video apps, texts, emails, and social media messaging to keep tabs on what’s going on at home.

The Philippines’ diaspora isn’t limited to the Pacific Rim either. Many work worldwide in the Middle East, Canada, U.S., Central & South America, and even Africa. Wherever major projects or significant labor resources are needed, skilled and unskilled Filipino workers can be found. And it has created an extended network of Filipino families across oceans as well.

A good number have become extremely adept at blockchain and cryptocurrency tools as well. However, these channels come with multiple risks. Many Filipinos have found themselves, unexpected victims of recent crypto-exchange collapses and hacks, seeing their hard-earned funds disappear in a digital instant without any means of recovery.

Additionally, cryptocurrency continues to have a suspicious shadow in the eyes of the government, which puts workers at risk for non-compliance with tax matters, for example. Yet people persist.

Much of the reason has to do with the fact that the Philippines simply doesn’t have the social safety network enjoyed in many developed countries. Medical services, senior welfare, job stability, and similar depending on what people can provide for themselves. So they work wherever the work is, and they find ways to send that money home in the billions of dollars.

Safer options, like those provided by Ria Money Transfer and similar, have also kept up with the times.

Aside from the ability to send money from well over 500 different countries worldwide via Ria’s network, users who have bank accounts abroad can easily connect their accounts online to Ria’s digital money transfer tools as well (https://www.riamoneytransfer.com/send-money-to-philippines). These applications, working on mobile devices as well as regular browser computer connections, liberalize money transfer support for millions of Filipinos who, as a group, probably are at the head of the pack in terms of utilizing digital tools for daily life.

Overseas work and migration are not going to change anytime soon for Filipino society. Instead, it is likely to continue to increase as life in the Philippines continues to be congested without the safety net mentioned above.

As a result, each new generation must go abroad yet stay connected to the home via digital apps and remittances, replacing those that went before them who now have earned the right to retire and be cared for as well.

That movement represents financially well over $44.2 billion annually transferred back home worldwide. Fortunately, services like Ria continue to expand and meet demand with a constant creation of new ways to help stay connected financially.