My priorities were:
- Money Value (Exchange Rate + Transfer Fees + Service Tax)
- Remittance Speed
- Trustworthiness of financial institute.
I decided to try SBI Online Remit and ICICI Money 2 India. The reason being that SBI is the biggest bank in India, and so it was promising in terms of my 1st and 3rd priorities. ,On the other hand, ICICI being a very big private bank too seemed like a fitting match to SBI.
Here is my finding:
| | SBI Express Remit | ICICI Money2India E Transfer |
| Transfer Requested | 100 USD | 100 USD |
| ACH Debit From US Bank | 100 USD | 102 USD |
| Money Credit Into IN Bank | 4820 INR | 4891 INR |
| Time Taken | 4 Business Days | 5 Business Days |
| | | |
Each of the banks did offer multiple options of remitting(Using ACH, Using Wire Transfer, Using Checks, and what not). My experiment was with ACH type of transmitting options only. Because it is usually the cheapest means.
I also had an eye open for fastest means of transfer and was quite impressed by the claims of Western Union to transfer money within hours.
In terms of cost effectiveness, if you are sending large amounts (More than 1500USD) then do check out Xoom (https://www.xoom.com/sendmoneynow/india/fees).
-----------
Updated on Dec 4, 2011: Apparently for larger amount, the result is different.
| | SBI Express Remit | ICICI Money2India E Transfer |
| Transfer Requested | 600 USD | 600 USD |
| ACH Debit From US Bank | 600 USD | 600 USD |
| Money Credit Into IN Bank | 30,549 INR | 30,634 INR |
| Time Taken | 5 Business Days | 5 Business Days |
Posts
