East West Banking Corporation or EastWest Bank offers one of the best checking accounts in the Philippines today.

It boasts of a low initial deposit and maintaining balance of 5,000 Php to open an account, which is relatively low in comparison to other banks.

EastWest Bank offers easy access to funds from your checking account by issuing you with an EastWest Visa Debit Card.

Sadly, the EastWest Regular Checking account doesn’t provide you with opportunities to grow your money, as it is a non-interest bearing account.

They also charge a high balance of 20,000 Php for opening a corporate checking account.

Take note that Eastwest charges 500 Php for early account closure. For personal checks, they charge 250 Php per checkpad and 500 Php for commercial ones. They had a checkbook reordering fee of 50 Php per pad per checkbook or per month.

They also charge a 30 Php dormancy charge for accounts that fall below the minimum monthly maintaining balance and have been dormant for over 5 years.

Other fees for checking account holders are an unclaimed returned check charge of 50 Php, and a stop payment order or SPO fee at 200 Php per check.

UCPB or the United Coconut Planters Bank had a merger with Landbank in early 2022.

If you want to open a checking account without the trouble of making a major deposit, we highly recommend getting a UCPB CheckStarter Account.

UCPB offers by far the lowest opening and maintaining balance we’ve reviewed: just 1,000 Php!

On fees and charges, a personal checkbook costs 250 Php for 50 pieces, while a commercial one with 100 pieces is sold at 500 Php. A lost passbook replacement is 200 Php.

The penalty for falling below maintaining balance for two consecutive months is 500 Php. We recommend you take advantage of the exceedingly low balance fees––be sure to keep enough money in your account, or else you’ll be the one buried in debt.

UCPB and Landbank charge stop payment orders at 200 Php per check, while the service charge for honored checks is 1,000 Php.

Dishonored or returned checks have a 2,000 Php service charge per check, and a 200 Php penalty charge per day.

Their monthly dormancy fee if account balance is below ADB and has been inactive for at least 5 years is 30 Php.

UCPB has an overdraft charge of 1,000 Php and 25 Php additional charges per check, to be debited from the account regardless of the amount.

The downside to opening a checking account with UCPB is that the account is not interest-bearing, so your money just stays put in your account.

As mentioned above, they also have a lot of additional charges and penalties specifically for the checking account. 

The “All Access” checking account is aptly named, as this offer of Security Bank is a checking account and a savings account in one. It comes with a passbook, checkbook, and an ATM mastercard. 

On top of that it comes with free FWD life insurance coverage, which is a pretty sweet deal when you only need 5,000 Php to open an account!

The drawback of a Security Bank checking account is despite the 5,000 Php opening balance, you will need to keep at least 25,000 Php in your account as a maintaining balance.

Apart from this, Security Bank charges 200 Php to replace a lost passbook, and 30 Php per month in dormancy charges beyond 5 years. For early closure of account, which is within 30 days, they charge 500 Php.

For their All Access Checking account, they charge 500 Php per month if your account falls below the minimum balance for 2 consecutive months.

What we don’t like about the Security Bank All Access Checking Account is that they have more expensive charges for SPOs and checkbooks.

They charge a 300 Php SPO request. For more than 5 checks, they will charge a maximum amount of 1,500 Php per SPO request. Ordering a checkbook costs 300 Php for personal accounts, and 500 Php for commercial accounts.

Chinabank’s ChinaCheck Plus offers hassle-free checking account opening with an opening balance of 5,000 Php, and a maintaining balance of the same amount.

They also offer an interest rate of 0.125% per annum, subject to 20% withholding tax.

What we appreciate about ChinaBank is that you can open a checking account even if you don’t have an existing account with them. This is usually one of the limitations of opening a checking account––people recommend you do so in your existing bank.

In terms of additional fees, at Chinabank personal checkbooks cost 250 Php per booklet, while commercial checkbooks are at 500 Php per booklet.

They charge a stop payment order of 100 Php per check and a 300 Php monthly fee for falling below minimum ADB requirement for at least 2 consecutive months for checking accounts.

What we don’t like about the ChinaCheck Plus account is that they require a minimum of 50,000 Php balance to earn interest in your checking account. Aside from this, their online banking (which you can access for your checking account) needs work.

At the moment, you cannot transfer funds through Paypal and Wise on Chinabank.

The Metrobank AccountOne offers ease of transaction through writing checks, accessing your funds online, and making online payments without breaking a sweat.

Opening a checking account with Metrobank will provide you with a passbook, checkbook, and debit card. It’s also an interest-earning account, so you know your money won’t stay stagnant!

What we love about Metrobank is that when opening a checking account with them, they don’t ask you for many requirements beyond the usual filled out form, 1×1 picture, TIN, and valid IDs. 

They do charge a 200 Php service charge for closing accounts within one month from the date of opening them, as well as a 250 Php checkbook cost.

The downside to the AccountOne is its considerably high opening and maintaining balance amount of 25,000 Php, which is the most expensive one in our review.

Aside from this, the Metrobank app needs to improve its interface to be competitive with other banks that provide online transactions.