Updated September 30, 2021
Here are 2 Metrobank Remittance Partners in Italy:
Valutrans SPA
Via Melchiorre Gioia 168
Milan, Italy 20125
Phone: 800 811 110
Valutrans is licensed by the Central Bank of Italy to operate as a money transfer and payment service institution in Italy. It’s also licensed in other European countries. It has more than 400 agents all around the Italian territory.
Extrabanca SPA
Via Pergolesi 2/A
20124 Milano, Italy
- Extrabanca is a licensed bank in Italy that has a multiethnic team to serve mainly foreigners and the multicultural community.
- You can send money through Extrabanca’s Money Transfer service even if you don’t have a bank account with them.
- Open Monday through Saturday with continuous hours until 7 pm
- You immediately know the peso amount that will be received in the Philippines
- Money will be received in just a few hours
- Can be deposited to a Philippine bank account, or cash pick-up or home delivery
- Bills can be paid, like home loan installments, Meralco or water bills
- Promos for transfer clients and for bank account owners
- Extrabanca Mobile app available
International money transfer organizations you can also use to send money to the Philippines from Italy:
- MoneyGram
- Western Union
- Ria
- WISE (Use your EUR debit or credit card issued in Italy or anywhere in Europe or EUR online banking)
- Transfast Worldwide Money Transfer
- UniTeller Banca Norte
- WorldRemit
- Xoom (Use your EUR debit and credit cards issued in Italy or anywhere in Europe, or your EUR money in Paypal)
- XpressMoney Global Money Transfer
- Prabha Money Transfer
Note: Metrobank, along with BPI, RCBC, BDO and PNB have scaled down or shut down their remittance operations in Italy, most probably due to strict requirements imposed by the Italian central bank on financial companies to fight international money laundering.
Metrobank Correspondent Banks in Italy
If you’re sending a large amount of money to the Philippines and if you have an Italian-based bank account, you can use wire transfer. Go to your bank and apply for a wire transfer.
Prepare your receiver’s bank name, account name, bank address, bank Swift code and account number.
Your wire transfer will be processed faster if your Italian bank is a Metrobank correspondent bank. Here are some:
Milan:
ABN Amro Bank N.V., Milan
Banca Monte Dei Paschi Di Sien, Milan
Banca Popolare Di Milano S.C.A.R.L.
Citibank NA
Deutsche Bank S.P.A
ING Bank N.V.
Intesa Sanpaolo Spa
Istituto Bancario San Pablo
Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd.
Unicredit S.P.A
Rome:
Banca Nazionale Del Lavoro S.P.A, Rome
Capitalia SPA
Efibanca S.P.A. (Banco Popolare Group)
Unicredit Banca Di Roma S.P.A.
Bergamo:
Credito Bergamasco S.P.A. (Banco Popolare Group)
Unione Di Banche Italiane S.C.P.A.
Verona:
Banca Popolare Di Verona SGSP
Banco Popolare Soc. Coop
Unicredit Corporate Banking SP
Other Metrobank Correspondent Banks in Italy –>> See Metrobank list, page 13
How Many Filipinos Are in Italy?
There are about 271,946 Filipinos in Italy as of December 2013, according to the latest data on Sep 29, 2021 from the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO).
127,814 are OFWs (with job contracts)
89,742 are permanent residents (immigrants and dual citizens)
54,390 are undocumented or irregular status
How much money is being remitted from Italy?
From January to July 2021, Filipinos in Italy sent a total of US$87.33 million, mostly from land-based Filipinos. This amount represents a huge decrease from recent years.
In 2010, Filipinos sent a total of 550.52 million US dollars, then for the years 2013 to 2019, remittances went down to between $300M to $200M.
Maybe the huge decreases this year and last year were caused by the pandemic. And for the past several years, maybe the reason was a big part of remittances no longer passing through banks but through informal channels and non-bank channels. Major Philippine banks like BPI, Metrobank and BDO no longer have or have significantly reduced their remittance operations in Italy.
In 2016, major Philippine banks shut down their remittance operations in Italy, after the Italian central bank enforced their anti-money laundering regulations, considered the strictest in Europe. Surely, the global media coverage of the RCBC money laundering scandal had a huge negative impact on Philippine remittance operations.
Metrobank branches and subsidiary banks
Metrobank remittance partners in Italy