Traditional International Payment Services to Send Money to India

It is difficult to decide which money transfer service to trust without the complete breakdown of pricing or service transparency. Be it a business that has to make thousands of payments globally every month or NRIs who want to send money to their family for personal reasons, it is necessary to choose the right mode of remittance. It is also important to check how much it will cost to get the money transferred to the intended recipient.

Only when the sender get competitive FX rates, the recipient in India will be able to get maximum of what is being sent. For instance, when you convert your currency (Dollars or Yen) into Indian currency, you will need the best exchange rates to India to ensure that after conversion the amount doesn’t become too less.

Here are top three traditional services that you can use for international payments:

Transferring through a bank

Did you know approximately 85% international remittances are carried out by banks? Banks are the most trusted remittance mode for thousands of money senders across the globe. This is because of the security factor. Even though it is expensive to send money to India through a bank, many people use this option because it is secure and also because they are not aware of other cost-effective remittance modes.

Banks levy significant fees on each transaction and this is what makes money transfers so expensive. From overseas bank receiving fees to flat rate transfer charges and obscure charges like Anti-money laundering costs, there is a lot that banks charge and this makes international remittance expensive. Since the transfer fees is high and the FX rates are not-so-competitive, you will not be able to save on your money transfers.

Money Transfer Agencies

As processing of an international remittance through a bank can take a couple of days, many people opt for remittance agencies or operators to send money quickly. Through these transfer operators, it becomes easy to send money within a matter of minutes; however, the cost is high. But when compared to a bank, you can still save money on the transfer fee charged by these operators. For instance, you can expect to pay anywhere between 7-12% for such services whereas in case of a bank, the cost can go up to 15%.

These operators don’t charge a set fees and every transaction gets calculated on the basis of factors like branch, online payment, country to which the money is being sent, country of origin and so on.

Foreign Exchange Broker

The third traditional method of sending money overseas is through a foreign exchange broker. If you have to make a large transaction, you can expect better exchange rates from a foreign exchange broker as compared to a high street bank. Their fees is also 3-4% lower compared to banks. When choosing a broker for a large transaction, make sure you do some good research because not all exercise transparency in term of charges.