WIRE Transfer-Money Transfer facility to and from India

Do you know without involving of actual currency one can transfer money from or to India? It is one of the safest and speedy way of transferring money. Your amount will get transferred to destination within 1-2 days. So let us discuss about this facility in detail.

Below are the few methods through which one can send money to his or relatives from outside India.

• Through NRE/NRI Account-This is the one of highly used way of transferring money to India. To avail this facility one must have NRE Account. You can deposit to this NRE Account and in India authorized person can withdraw it in rupees.
• Personal Cheques-This is the lengthy way of transferring the fund. It takes time for clearance and cost for that.
• Cashier Cheque or MO-This can be initiated at any bank and involves charges for the service.
• Bank Drafts in the currency where you will send-Usually banks provide such facilities but it again time-consuming.
• Western Union-They have agents located across globe.  Usually they charge based on the amount and location you are sending.
• WIRE Transfer-This is also fast and easy way to sending money and this we will discuss in detail.

Few silent features of WIRE Transfer are as below.

• Wire Transfer is the process carried out by bank on behalf of originator (person who transfer fund) for transfer of fund to the destination (person who receives the money).
• There are two types of WIRE Transfer 1) International Transfer-Where origination and destination belong to different countries. 2) Domestic Transfer-Where origination and destination belong to same country.

There are three players in this transfer process.

1) Ordering Bank-This is the bank where the request for transfer originates. It is the duty of originating bank to have complete information about originator and according to RBI rule they must retain it for at least for 10 years.

2) Intermediary Bank-These banks act like middlemen to Ordering Bank and to Beneficiary Bank.

3) Beneficiary Bank-Where one intend to send money. This bank must have account of beneficiary. It is the responsibility of beneficiary bank to collect the necessary information to remit the amount beneficiary.

How it works?

You must initiate for wire transfer from you local bank through their online/offline mentioning the destination details like account holder name, account number, IFSC Code (If in India) and SWIFT CODE of destination bank.  Usually ordering bank and beneficiary bank either have their own reciprocal account with each other or the amount will be sent to intermediary bank for settlement of fund.

What is SWIFT Code?

This is nothing but a unique code to each bank. The full form of SWIFT is “Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication”. This is the  body who authorize to allot code to each bank. Sometimes BIC code also refers to as SWIFT Code.

Usually this code consists of either 8 or 11 characters. For example HDFC Bank’s SWIFT Code is HDFCINBB.

• First four characters indicates the Bank Name.
• Next two characters indicates country code.
• Next two characters indicates the location code.
• Next three characters are optional which indicates the bank branch codes.

What are the charges?

Charges depends on the beneficiary bank rules. Each bank have it’s own set of rules for charging. Usually charges involves currency conversion as well as service charge which are minimal. But better to ask your destination bank regarding the charges.

What I am sharing is theoretical process. But let me know some readers experience like which they feel the best way of transfer funds.