Exchange Rate of Various Services

1. SBI - https://remit.onlinesbi.com/glsremit/exchangerate.htm
2. ICICI: https://m2inet.icicibank.co.in/m2iNet/exchangeRate.misc
3. HDFC: http://www.timesofmoney.com/remittance/jsp/remitExchangeRate.jsp?partnerId=HDFC&uiId=HDFC
4. XOOM:https://www.xoom.com/sendmoneynow/home

Deposit Money in NRO account

HSBC bank is offering (http://www.hsbc.co.in/1/2/personal/bank-accounts/fixed-deposits/interest-rates) 8% interest rate on 3 year deposit. This seems quite attractive for NRIs. We can transfer money to NRO account and get 8% return compared to 1% or so we are getting here. I am quite tempted, however there are two things I need to sort out before taking the plunge:

1) Currency risk - There is possibility that rupee can depreciate against US dollar. This can result in reduced gains or evel loss of principle. I am not very bullish on US dollar given the fiscal deficit of US and hence willing to take this currency risk.

2) How to bring the money back: I have to find out process of bringing money back to US. If you know about this send me a note

Deposit Rates In India

I had some money lying in my HDFC account in India and I wanted to keep in a fixed deposit to earn better returns. I was searching for interest rates offered by various banks and came across http://www.ratekhoj.com/.

It is nice website which lets you search deposit rates based on institution type (private, public, company, post office), amount, term etc. Check out this website if you are thinking of making a fixed deposit in bank.

Another interesting website is http://www.rupeetimes.com/. This article also lets you find the deposit rates from various banks. It also has good educational article on taxation, savings etc.

Remit2India Service Review

Couple of my colleagues had very bad service experience with Remit2India. Their main complaints are:
1) First one didn't get the rate promised by the website. She understand that rate depend on the date on which money gets cleared. During the entire duration of the transaction, site showed the rate no lower than 48.50 however he got the rate of 47.75. This seems like downright fraud. Also it took around 10 days for the transaction to complete which is very slow.

2) Second one had very bad experience with the customar service. He tried to cancel the transaction. Person on the phone asked him to send email. They never replied to email(s). He called again and was told that they are creating a ticket. Next time my friend called, person didn't know anything about the ticket. My friend is very unhappy with the service.

From these two references it seems remit2India is not a service to use. If you have used remit2india, please share your experince.

Citi Bank vs ICICI Money2India

One of my colleague has Citi Bank's NRI account (www.citinri.com) and uses it to send money to India. He was talking to me about pathetic rates he was getting from Citi bank. I asked him to try ICICI Money2India. He wanted to compare both services so he sent 1000$ from each service on the same day to his account in India.

A week later he told me he is never using Citi Bank again for the following reasons:

1) He got Rs 39.20 rate from Citi Bank and Rs 40 from ICICI bank. That is 80 paisa more for each dollar from ICICI bank. This is huge if you are sending big chunk of money.

2) ICICI money reached 1 day earlier than Citi bank.

3) ICICI has online tracking facility so you can check the status of your transaction. Citi bank has no such option.

Now I wonder who is using Citi Bank for transferring money to India and why?

Options to Receive money From India

There are plenty of services available for sending money to India. I was wondering what are the rules and what kind of services are available for reverse, i.e. for sending money from India to US.

I checked the RBI web site and found following link http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/FAQView.aspx?Id=66 which explains all the rules. As per this Indians can send $2oo,000 overseas without RBI approval. This money can be used for buying property, debt, stock or you can just keep in a foreign bank account.

This $200,000 limit is per year.

Regarding how to transfer money, I couldn't find any services. But I guess local Indian bank will transfer money to your overseas account by charging some commission.

I found one thing interesting about this $200000 limit. It is set in dollar, so with Rupee appreciating rapidly, this limit is decreasing in rupees. I wonder why RBI is not setting the limit in Rupees.

Rupee record high in 10 years against dollar

Technorati Tags: Send Money To India,Rupee,Dollar,Exchange Rate

At 39.285 for 1 US dollar, Rupee is at 10 year high. I think dollar will continue to fall against rupee for next year. Why do I think so? For the following reasons:

1. Fed in US has very strongly indicated that it will continue to cut rates in US. This will accelerate the flight of money from US to places where investors can get better returns (i.e. where interest rates are higher).
2. Indian economy is doing very well and most of the business people and government officials are very upbeat about continued strong economic growth. On the other hand US economy is heading towards a recession. This is causing lots of people to move money from US to India. This is getting reflected in Indian stock market. While US market fell heavily in last two weeks, Indian market is defying all global indices and reaching record highs everyday. Note Exchange rate is all about demand and supply. More dollar move in to India, more it will depreciate.
3. Some very large IPOs (ex Reliance Power, OIL, ICICI subsidiaries, Wockhardt Hospital) are scheduled for next year. This will cause further investment from FIIs in India.
4. Real Estate prices are going up in India. Many NRIs want to maintain roots in India or want to move back to India in future. These NRIs are buying real estate in India in record numbers either because they think it is great investment or because of fear that it will be out of their budget very soon.

I am very pessimistic about dollar. In this environment, I think it is wise to move some percentage of assets to India and invest there. I would love to hear what other NRIs are doing?

Online Application for PAN card

Permanent Account Number (PAN) is a ten-digit alphanumeric number, issued in the form of a laminated card, by the Income Tax Department. http://incometaxindia.gov.in/PAN/Overview.asp has detailed information on PAN card.

PAN card is required if you are investing in India in mutual funds, demat account or if you want to make purchases like cell phone, car or house. PAN card can be applied online at https://tin.tin.nsdl.com/pan/index.html

Remit2India guaranteeing best exchange rates for transferring money to India

Remit2India is having a promotions where they are guaranteeing to match anyone who is offering exchange rates better than them. This seems like a great promotion. Their website also has comparison of their rates and ICICI bank rates. Remit2India is claiming to give few cents more than ICICI. In the past I have found ICICI to offer best rates. If remit2India is offering better than ICICI then folks transferring large amount should definitely consider them.

Here is the link to promotion http://www.timesofmoney.com/remittance/jsp/toml_nreExchangeRate_US.jsp


Looks like with Rupee appreciating against dollar so strongly, lots of people has started demanding better rates from money transfer services and this is showing effect.

SBI offerring for transferring money to India

SBI (State Bank Of India) has come out with a new web site for sending money to India. Here is the link: http://www.onlinesbi.com/glsus/#

I quickly browsed through the website. It is pretty easy to use and rate they are offering are very competitive. And being SBI you can trust your money is in safe hands.

I would love to hear from people who have used this service.

Best Rate for sending money to India

I did comparsion of exchange rates and fees charged by various services for sending money to India. Today's reference rate from Reserve Bank Of India (http://www.rbi.org.in/) is Rupee 40.97 for 1 US Dollar. All the rates should be looked in context of this reference rate. Rates offered on a given day will change.

I found HDFC offers best rates and lowest charges. ICICI bank was second. Here is my analysis:

1) HDFC Bank

Fees: No fees
Exchange Rate:
For 11 - 1000$ --> 1$ = 40.59 Indian Rupees
For 1001 - 3500$ --> 1$ = 40.68 Indian Rupees
For 3501 - 5000$ --> 1$ = 40.73 Indian Rupees

2) ICICI Bank
Fees: 2$ for 1000$ and free above it.
Exchange Rate:
For 1000$ --> 1$ = 40.35
For 5000$ --> 1$ = 40.46253

3) Western Union
Fees: $81 for 900$ transaction. They have limit of 1000$ so I tried 900$ transaction and they showed the fees of $81.
Exchange Rate:
For 900$ --> 1$ = 40.2864996

4) Xoom.com
Their online calculator didn't allow for more than 1000$. They have service fee of 15$ for the standard service and no fee for value service.

Exchange Rate:
For 1000$ --> 1$ = 39.70

5) eMoneyGram.com. This site also has limit of 1000 US Dollars. But has reasonable rates and has one day delivery. So it is good if you want to send money quickly.

Same Day Service Fee $15

Exchange Rate
For 1000$ : 1 US Dollary = 40.376700 INR


There are two other big services. CitiNRI and TimesOfMoney.com. I couldn't figure out any exchange rate information from their web site. I have no idea of TimesOfMoney.com but from what i have heard from my friends ICICI rates are much better than Citi bank. If that's true then Citi rates are lower than HDFC and ICICI.

Based on this if I am tranferring big amount I will definitely use HDFC bank. I have used ICICI bank in the past and their service was good.

Western Union fees are horrible. Only attracition is they allow for very quick money transfer. Receiver can pick money in India minutes after your transaction is done. I will use this only when I need to send money very urgently but then it only allows 1000$ which is pretty useless in emergency (atleast in my case.)

Do you trust Remit2India

Remit2India is a money transfer service offered by TimesOfIndia group. I was curious to know the rate they offer so I registered on the site and started a transfer ( I didn't complete it and canceled it mid-way). I didn't like the service for two main reasons & lots of small reasons

Big Reasons I didn't like:

1. On the site they don't talk about the exchange rate which will used for transaction.
2. They offer insurance to protect the transaction. Here are the exact words from the web-site "Remit2India, in association with ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co. Ltd, provides you with a Money Insurance Guarantee- a first ever in the industry.Now, insure your money against risks of service negligence or technology perils like virus/hacking*. Secure your money from the time it leaves your hands till it reaches your family, for as little as 4.95 Dollars . A small price to pay for complete peace of mind! " This is very scary to me. This service doesn't protect its customers for their service negligence or their system getting hacked. I will never use such service. Would you?

Some minor reasons:

1. Web site (http://www.timesofmoney.com/remittance/jsp/home.jsp) is very cluttered.
2. They give you a free photoclock for transaction of more than 1000$. Now why are you giving me clock. Add that money to my transaction. If I want to send a clock, I would go to some gift shop.
3. Usability is not great. Ex: They first ask to select the city and then ask for State. A better way would be ask to select the state and then populate the city list based on state and allow selection of city. ( Yeah I am software engineer:) )
4. At the top of site they have a link to set remit2india as your home page. Now why in the world someone set remit2india as homepage:(

Limit Order for Money Transfer

Exchange rate of US/Indian Rupee keep changing all the time. All the money transfer services to India take atleast 1 week and you know about the exchange rate used for your transaction only when money reaches to your account in India. Most of the banks uses this time to give you worst possible rate and provide no explanation for the rate they provided. I think there is need for lots of reform in this area. I would love for someone to offer a service where I can select minimum floor price for my transfer. This is similar to limit price you can set for stock sale. So once you have set the exchange rate for your transaction, bank will only do the transaction when it can provide that rate. It can mean that your transaction may not happen for some time or may never happen. In that case you will need to cancel the order and enter new order.

What do you think? Will you use such service?

ICICI MoneyTransfer Review

I used ICICI Money2India service to transfer my money to India. I used Power Transfer. It was very easy to use, it took around 5 days and exchange rate was reasonable. In this service, you need to wire money to ICICI account with Bany of NewYork and they wire money from there to your bank account in India.

This is how the service works:
1) Goto http://icicibank.com/ and select money transfer under NRI section.
2) Create a money to India account. It is pretty straight forward.
3) Login in to account. Select the PowerTransfer service. You need to fill a form which asks for details like amount, bank/branch to which you want to send the money etc.
4) I like the usability. You can select the bank from drop-down. Once you select the bank, it shows the list of city and you select your city from it. Once you select the city, it shows the list of branches and you select your branch. No hassle of knowing the swift code of your branch. All you really need to know is the account number and name of benefiary.
5) Once you have filled the form, they provide with information to wire money to ICICI Bank account with Bank Of NewYork. They also provide you a reference number which you must send with the wire transfer. You print this form, take it to your bank and transfer the money. Make sure you tell your bank to include the reference number.
6) That's it. Your work is done. You can track your order online. For me it took 4 days for money to reach my account in India.

http://www.rbi.org.in/ reference rate on the day of transfer was 40.90 and I got 40.65 rate for my transfer. To me it looks good, however I am no expert in this area. If you are currency wiz and have opinion in this area, I would love to hear.

Back to ICICI service, i think it is good and would recommend it to anyone.

Appreciating Rupee and poorer NRI

I am working in US for about 8 years now and harbor a dream of going back to India in couple of years. Most of my assets and savings are in USD. Recent 10% appreication of rupee has caused correspoding dent in my savings when converted in to Rupees. Everyone is talking about further gradual depreciation of dollar against most major currency. This makes me wonder if I should start diversifying my savings/assets to other currency. May this is time to buy a house in India. I have been thiking about it for long time, but think this is now time for action. I would hate to see further erosion in my savings because of depreciation of dollar.

DLF & ICICI Issue and Rupee Rate

I need to send some money to India. Since the rupee has depreciated significantly in recent weeks (current rate 40.5$), I was wondering if I should wait for some time for rates to improve. I was talking to my dad ( he lives in India) about this. He said it is better to send now because rates are expected to go down further. He said DLF and ICICI are coming out with huge public issues and this will result very significant inflow of FII investment in to India and would put further downward pressure on dollar. Logic makes sense to me and I am rushing to send money to India. However the amount is large so I am looking for best service to send money. I have done some research and looks like ICICI is the best way to go. I will post on it goes and the rate I get. I am hoping I will get atleast 40.5.

Is this Hawala

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.