Money Transfer Review
Independent Financial Specialists
| Are You Sending Money To India? In 2007 the World Bank confirmed that India is the larget receiver of money transfers enywhere in the world from Western Union services. In 2006 India received $23.4 billion! The money transfer market is currently burgeoning at a growth rate of over 10% a year, this growth is fueled by a rise in people seeking work overseas, this is of course one of the main reasons india receives such a large amount of money transfers. Indeed in late 2007 western UNion opened their 300,000th money transfer agent globally in India. India alone has over 36,000 western union agents in more then 4,200 settlements nationwides. western Union has agents in prominent banks, post offices and other leading private sector companies. However Western Union is certainly by no means the only way to transfer money online to loved ones or business partners in India. Unsuprisingly with such a big market for money transfers there are several established companies to choose from. Here are the fees based on a $500 US money transfer from New York, America to India: Western Union Money Transfer Fee: $10, money is available at any of the 300,000 agents within minutes so long as the recipient has sufficient identification and the money transfer control number. MoneyGram Money Transfer Fee: $10, however you can only use their online money transfer service if you are based in the Unite States. Xoom Money Transfer Fee: 9.99 or you can choose to do a delayed transaction whereby the recipient doesn't pick up the money for a few days. This service costs only $2.00. Further more Xoom offer fee-free transactions to India when the amount is over $700. They can deposit money direct into any Indian bank account and they can even arrange a home delivery service for your cash to be delivered direct to the recipients house. Xoom have 4350 money transfer pick-up agents nationwide for no extra cost. Of course you could always use Paypal. Money can be transferred instantly to anyone with an e-mail address. However money can take 5-7 days to download in to the recipients bank accoutn so the transfer isn't instant but it is very cheap. Ikobo Money Transfer Fee: $5, however there is a slightly lengthy sign-up procedure. a) Provide your personal details to sign-up online. b) Inform them of the recipients details c) Ikobo delivers a reloadable Visa card to your inteneded recipient d) they can then make withdrawals from over 1,000,000 ATMs worldwide. This may be a better option for people who are going to transfer money overseas regularly. As you can see their are plenty of options to send money to India and this is just the tip of the ice-berg so don't think you have to use any of these, do some investigations and find the most suitable for you. |
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