I remember when I first worked in Hongkong in 2001, There two places us Filipinos would converge.
One was church and the other was mall where the remittance centers were.
In Hongkong, this was World Wide House in Central. Here you can send money thru the branches of Philippine banks situated there
There was always a long queue there on Sunday and was quite impossible to send money during December
When I moved to Singapore in 2004, I initially went to the Singapore version of World Wide House, which was Lucky Plaza in Orchard Road
But things eventually improved a bit. Philippine bank wents online then smaller remittance companies were able to setup shop near offices. You actually did not need to to travel to the city center to send money
And before I left, you could send money online
https://www.xoom.com/singapore/send-money
Unfortunately, the next country moved to was China which has strict foreign currency controls
https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-send-money-from-China-to-the-Philippines
Fortunately, china has UNION PAY, which basically is China’s VISA/MASTERCARD. It allows you to use your atm card in any atm machine in the world that has this logo with smaller fees and better exchange rate than VISA/MASTERCARD (Check your atm machine)
I’ve been to Singapore, Hongkong, Philippines, Malaysia and Australia and I have always found an atm that accepted Union PAY.
http://www.unionpayintl.com/en/
But required you to be in physically in country to withdraw money and deposit it in your local bank account
That is why buying Bitcoin is the future of remittances which will greatly everyone who has a love one back home