Money transfer to India

[jenimmi]

I'll be travelling to India soon on my OCI.
I want to take at least $5k for my (and relatives') expenses there. But I may not spend it all, depending on the circumstances.

I do not have a bank account in India, not even the non-resident type ones. I think there's more than one kind of such non-resident account that certain banks offer, but I'm not aware of those yet.

Can some one recommend what is the cheap and efficient way to take/send that much money to India and in the eventuality of not using it all, to bring it back into the US as $ . I guess I'm asking this b'cos once you convert it into INR and then back to USD, you lose quite a bit on conversion commission? Is there a way I can avoid the commission thingy?

 

[akgarg]

I'll be travelling to India soon on my OCI.
I want to take at least $5k for my (and relatives') expenses there. But I may not spend it all, depending on the circumstances.

I do not have a bank account in India, not even the non-resident type ones. I think there's more than one kind of such non-resident account that certain banks offer, but I'm not aware of those yet.

Can some one recommend what is the cheap and efficient way to take/send that much money to India and in the eventuality of not using it all, to bring it back into the US as $ . I guess I'm asking this b'cos once you convert it into INR and then back to USD, you lose quite a bit on conversion commission? Is there a way I can avoid the commission thingy?

How about travelers checks? You can get them without any commission fees if you are AAA member or such.

 

[immigrateful]

I'll be travelling to India soon on my OCI.
I want to take at least $5k for my (and relatives') expenses there. But I may not spend it all, depending on the circumstances.

I do not have a bank account in India, not even the non-resident type ones. I think there's more than one kind of such non-resident account that certain banks offer, but I'm not aware of those yet.

Can some one recommend what is the cheap and efficient way to take/send that much money to India and in the eventuality of not using it all, to bring it back into the US as $ . I guess I'm asking this b'cos once you convert it into INR and then back to USD, you lose quite a bit on conversion commission? Is there a way I can avoid the commission thingy?

You don't even need a bank account in India - you can use services such as ICICI's Money 2 India or Remit 2 India. They have several options to transfer money directly from your US bank account to India. Most of these sites charge a very nominal fee of $2-$3 per transfer but they do have a limit of $1000 or so at one time. You can setup recurring period transfers. The best part is all of this can be done online.

 

[ginnu]

You don't even need a bank account in India - you can use services such as ICICI's Money 2 India or Remit 2 India. They have several options to transfer money directly from your US bank account to India.
------------------------the person does not have NRE or NRO account on his name with banks in India and Money to India or Remit 2 India cant depost money in his account in India but he can use relative Bank account and they will transfer to that Bank account. FYI he can open NRE account with ICICI from US
Most of these sites charge a very nominal fee of $2-$3 per transfer but they do have a limit of $1000 or so at one time. You can setup recurring period transfers. The best part is all of this can be done online.

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1 open NRE account on your name with ICICI bank .www.icicibank.com then transfer money to your NRE account in India
OR
2 Transfer the money to relative or friend account in India
Or
Take the Cash and get it exchanged in Indian rupees at Airport or any bank
Or take the Traveler checks and get it exchanged in Indian rupees at Airport or any bank/ Agency

 

[kcpant]

There are a couple of ways I can think of:

1. Travellers Checks or ICICI bank (Already mentioned above)
2. Check with your local banks.... For e.g. there is a local bank where i live (Compas Bank) which lets me use its ATM for free anywhere in the world and when I am in India, i can withdraw money from this account easily without any extra payment. THe xchange rate is also decent.
3. Remember that credit cards work at many places there.

 

[Kris-Colorado]

As far as using ATM is concern there will multiple fees associated like

a. Using the ATM (out of network fee) which will normally be a flat fee.
b. Foreign currency conversion fee which will normally be percentage.

Some of the banks will wave the ATM fee but not the currency conversion fee. I would probably like the idea of carrying the Traveller's check or send money to india via ICICI or remit2india.

At the end of the day there is nothing FREE.

- Kris-colo

 

[aabbcc11]

The best is to use a combination of cash, TCs and credit/debit cards. I would use crdt cards in reputed stores only. The point is that all of these will have some sort of fees or cost -- you can't escape that.

There are many people who will change money with you in back rooms and with no paperwork for no fees and beneficial exchange rates. They usu approach you near Thomas cook or other money changing banks etc. It depends on your comfort level to deal with t hem.

 

[kcpant]

As far as using ATM is concern there will multiple fees associated like
a. Using the ATM (out of network fee) which will normally be a flat fee.
b. Foreign currency conversion fee which will normally be percentage.

Thats true. But this bank returns those fees back to me. They make it free. I got a 42.3 conversion. So couldn't complain. Even ICICI charges some fees hidden in xchange rate. They also have a Rs25 fees for all remittances now.