Many people use Electronic Money Transfer services to transfer money to India from Singapore. I though of sharing my experience with everybody here. This will help you to make an informed decision about the services generally offered in Singapore and also I hope my experience in dealing with these parties helps.
Primarily I have been using two services
Above services requires DBS Bank Account in Singapore. I would prefer DBS Savings bank account due to lower charges from them. Also understand that in Singapore every bank has Savings and Checking bank account seperatly, as in India we know that this is typically bundled together. So when you open an Savings bank account, you don't get a cheque book and also the deposit is lower. For availing cheque book facility, you need to open Checking Account and that has more deposit(typically SGD 3000 or more). The other option when banks offer checking account with no deposit is when you deposit your salary with them every month!
Money2India
This is a ICICI Bank service. They offer to transfer money electronically in 1 day to most of the Indian Banks who have Electronic clearing facilities. I found the service very good and reliable. They offer HTTPS security too. Most of the cases the money is transferred to the Indian bank in 2 days(it all depends when you initiate the transaction from Singapore!).
Quickremit
Although their exchange rates sometimes looks better. The website is managed by timesofmoney.com and does seem very professional to me. Many times I have found that after entering the login details, you are taken to the first page and when you click for transfer..it says you are logged out!. This typically happens on weekend's :) .. I am not sure whether other customers have also faced this problem. Again I am not very comfortable with dealing with money transfer services which are outsourced by HDFC to someone else. Not sure why HDFC is doing this.
The other good option to deal with this international money transfer is to have bank account with some of the International Banks like Citibank, HSBC or DBS etc(but again DBS may not have branches all over India). This way your money transfer is instant.
I have personally used Citibank and found it very good. As the Money is transferred instantly to my Citibank Account in India.
Most of the people are looking for better rates while transferring the money, that's why they look for these 3rd party services like money2india, quickremit, western union etc. But I guess it is better to deal with one bank and do transactions with them.
For example for today although Yahoo Currency rate shown is INR 32.52 for 1 SGD. Money2India is offering INR 32.20 and Quickremit is INR 32.19!. So it does not make difference which one you use. So it is better to use some good internet service which is reliable and offers support in case some issues. I believe in that case using your own bank is always better!
I hope you find this information useful!.
Please let me know if you know any other good services to transfer money to India from Singapore.
enjoy
Sandeep
Primarily I have been using two services
Above services requires DBS Bank Account in Singapore. I would prefer DBS Savings bank account due to lower charges from them. Also understand that in Singapore every bank has Savings and Checking bank account seperatly, as in India we know that this is typically bundled together. So when you open an Savings bank account, you don't get a cheque book and also the deposit is lower. For availing cheque book facility, you need to open Checking Account and that has more deposit(typically SGD 3000 or more). The other option when banks offer checking account with no deposit is when you deposit your salary with them every month!
Money2India
This is a ICICI Bank service. They offer to transfer money electronically in 1 day to most of the Indian Banks who have Electronic clearing facilities. I found the service very good and reliable. They offer HTTPS security too. Most of the cases the money is transferred to the Indian bank in 2 days(it all depends when you initiate the transaction from Singapore!).
Quickremit
Although their exchange rates sometimes looks better. The website is managed by timesofmoney.com and does seem very professional to me. Many times I have found that after entering the login details, you are taken to the first page and when you click for transfer..it says you are logged out!. This typically happens on weekend's :) .. I am not sure whether other customers have also faced this problem. Again I am not very comfortable with dealing with money transfer services which are outsourced by HDFC to someone else. Not sure why HDFC is doing this.
The other good option to deal with this international money transfer is to have bank account with some of the International Banks like Citibank, HSBC or DBS etc(but again DBS may not have branches all over India). This way your money transfer is instant.
I have personally used Citibank and found it very good. As the Money is transferred instantly to my Citibank Account in India.
Most of the people are looking for better rates while transferring the money, that's why they look for these 3rd party services like money2india, quickremit, western union etc. But I guess it is better to deal with one bank and do transactions with them.
For example for today although Yahoo Currency rate shown is INR 32.52 for 1 SGD. Money2India is offering INR 32.20 and Quickremit is INR 32.19!. So it does not make difference which one you use. So it is better to use some good internet service which is reliable and offers support in case some issues. I believe in that case using your own bank is always better!
I hope you find this information useful!.
Please let me know if you know any other good services to transfer money to India from Singapore.
enjoy
Sandeep
