You want to send money from USA to India? What are the best options that you have? You could grab the dollars, hop on a commercial airplane and personally deliver the money to your friends and family or evade the hustle and extra cost of traveling by utilizing international money transfer methods. These come in all shapes and sizes. Some take longer than others, some require a lot of information to grasp, some are too risky and others are plain complicated.
To help you make a sound decision, here are three safe and effective methods you can consider using.
1. Bank wire transfer
This is one of the oldest and safest methods of sending money, both locally and internationally. The process is pretty straightforward; schedule the transfer online, via the telephone or physically at the branch. This method may be safe but the fees are hefty. Prepare to part with anything between $45 and $60 per transaction, on average. The transaction costs can go higher depending on the exchange rate in question.
2. Paypal
Just like bank transfer, Paypal has also been used to transfer money between countries for a reasonably long period of time. To use their services, you and your recipient will need a Paypal account (it takes less than 5 minutes to open one). Once you have entered certain details required by the system such as your legal name, email address, address, phone number, and credit/debit card, you can send or receive money from anywhere on the globe. Of course, you will need an internet connection to do this. Paypal is secure, fast, easy, and features a great customer service. However, just like bank wire transfer, the fees are huge. International money transfer attracts a fee of approximately 0.5% to 2% of the transaction. If you use a credit or debit card, you can pay up to 3.4% – 3.9% of the total transaction.
3. TransferWise
TransferWise is your best friend when you want to send a large amount of money. The fees are much lower compared to the first two options. TransferWise uses the peer-to-peer technology to in its transactions. For instance, if you want to send money from US to India, the system will match you with an individual transferring rupee into dollars within one day. The standard fee per transaction is $3 for less than $300 and 0.7% for amounts above $5,000.
There are many options that you can use to send money from US to India but Paypal, bank wire transfer and TransferWise are the best and safest methods. Take caution though, as many have fallen prey to online money theft using these very methods before.
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