I have sent small amount of money (less than USD 5000) to India in the past using my bank. I never cared about the exchange rate since amount involved is small. However now I need to send relatively larger amount to India so I started looking around for other services. I also sent an email to Indian DL in my company inquiring about best way to send money to India. I got usual replies about ICICI bank, TimesMoney etc. However one reply was very interesting. This person's has a friend who wants to convert her money in India in to dollars and offered to tranfer money in to my account in India and in exchange asked me to transfer money to her friend's account in US. To me this seemed like Hawala and I don't think it is legally allowed in India? I politely refused the offer but am wondering if this is really Hawala or I am just being overtly cautious?
More interesting question is: Is there any legal way for me to exchange money with this person? By legal I mean follow the US, Indian and international financial rules. This way I can get the best rate, avoid paying commission to intermediary.
3 comments:
Yeah.. I would think this is hawala... not sure though
If u are transferring BIG money using this , basically the Govt and the companies loose money what we call the service charges and the diff in the actual conv rate and what we get, thats why its called havala and is illegal.
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