Sending Money to India? Compare Rates on HDFC Quick Remit vs ICICI Money2India vs Remit2India vs SBI vs Axis bank

If you are sending money to India from any abroad location e.g. United States, Singapore, United Kingdom, or Australia, it's worth checking rates offered by different remitting services like DBS India Remit, CurrencyFair, HDFC Quick Remit,  ICICI money2India, Times money Remit2India, Axis bank remittance services and SBI bank itself. Given current volatility in exchange rates, you may end up losing a good sum of money up to 1000 to 5000 Rupees, given your choice of remitting services. Since all of the above provide good services and connectivity in terms of sending money to different cities in India or even sending money to a different branch of a different bank. 

For example, You can use CurrencyFair or ICICI Moeny2India to send money to your Mumbai HDFC account or Bangalore Kotak Mahindra account, in fact to any branch and any city. This means, there is no point in sticking with just one service or bank for transferring money to India.

It's time to look for alternatives, compare rates, and use the one which is offering the best rates for your hard-earned USD, SGD, AUD, or GBP. There are people who always stick with one service, but when they see their friends and colleagues exploring options and getting more on each transfer,  they rethink their strategy.

Comparison of exchange rates before sending money to your Indian account becomes, even more, important because of recent volatility in USD vs INR and SGD vs INR rates. Actually, the rupee fell significantly over all major currencies including EURO, GBP, and even JPY.

At any single point, you can see the significant difference between rates offered among ICICI money2India and HDFC Quick Remit and Times Remit2India service.

As per my experience, Remit2India provides the closest market rates, while SBI and ICICI are sluggish to update on market movements. HDFC quick remit offers the second-best rates at any given point, which is also pretty close to current market rates. 

The only hassle, while using all these services is that you need to register with them and manage your account. It's really a hassle given the number of online accounts you have to manage apart from your banks, credit cards, Facebook, YouTube, Gmail, and others.


The good thing is that there are some sites where you can compare live rates from all these services like sgd2Inr for Singapore NRI or for anyone who is transferring Singapore dollars to India. Though nothing is guaranteed, it offers a convenient view of exchange rates offered by Axis Bank, HDFC quick remit, ICICI money2India both fixed and market rates, Times money's Remit2India, and rates from SBI Singapore branch.

Sending Money to India  - Things to remember

If you are newly settled down abroad and sending money first time to India, then you may want to do some more research to become familiar with different services as mentioned above and certain things related to exchange rates and money transfer. Here are a couple of things worth noting for people sending money first time to India:

1. Current Market Rate [Google]

When you transfer money to India by using any of these services, what you see is current market rates, you are not guaranteed to get that. If the market moves once you initiated the transfer, you may get either higher or lower rates depending upon exchange rates appreciation. Bank provides rates from the time when actual money conversion takes place.

2. Transfer Fee and Charges

Many money transfer services including ICICI money2India charge you a few dollars depending upon how much money you are transferring e.g. ICICI money2India charges around 2 USD if you transfer below 500 USD. Different services might have different charges, it's best to check their individual sites for more information. 

Apart from charging money to dollars, you also need to pay some money, in the range of 100 to 200 for various charges like currency conversion charges, transfer charges, etc. Most of the services show these charges upfront and they also show the indicative amount that will be transferred to your account. By the way, CurrencyFair gives 3 free transactions for new customers, you can use this to send money to India or abroad for free. 

3. Fixed Exchange Rate

Some remittance service websites like CurrencyFair and ICICI moeny2India also offer fixed exchange rates transfer, where you effectively lock your exchange rates at the time of transfer. This kind of transfer usually offers a little bit less than the current exchange rates, but if you want to lock exchange rates, this is the best option. 

So no need to worry about exchange rates falling down. This is best when the rupee is appreciating, not when it's falling every day like nowadays because you may get better rates than expected. Once again this is a personal choice.

4. Money Transfer using Net Banking

Many banks like DBS, OCBC in Singapore offers direct linkage with these services as Bill Payment options, which means you can directly transfer money from your local bank account to ICICI Money2India or Remit2India or HDFC quick remit and they will be credited to your Indian bank account within 2 to 3 business days. In best cases, you can expect money in your account at the end of the second business day.

5. Overseas Remittance Facility by International Banks

Many banks also offer overseas remittance facilities, especially if they have branches there e.g. Citibank and recently  DBS started that in Singapore as well. You often get better rates by directly transferring using your local bank, but even in that case, it's worth doing a comparison of rates offered by all these services.

6. Online vs Offline Money Transfer Service

It's better to stick with online money transfer services than offline ones like sending money using the Western Union or by directly depositing it into SBI branches. You not only save a lot of time and hassle by going into the branch, standing in the queue but also pay less commission for currency conversion. It's also easy to keep track of your money transfers by using an online service than a manual one.

Last but not the least, everyone works hard to earn money and all people who send money to India are living abroad, away from their family, friends, society, and culture, which means you must get the best rates for your hard-earned dollars. 

Though not many people do enough research or compare rates before transferring money to India, even for the bigger amount, in which case you may lose up to 10 to 20K on India rupees, which is still not a small amount in India. Spend some time, do your research, and bookmark sites that can provide a comparison of exchange rates for different remittance services.

P. S. - CurrencyFair is offering 3 free transactions for new customers, you can use this to send money to India or abroad for free.