Monday, November 16, 2020

Sending/receiving money from your loved ones

So should your family want to send you money from your home country (for me it is India/INR) to the place you are currently living (for me it is the USA/USD/$) how would they have to go about it? The general norm/websites that I could find always go the opposite (from the USA (USD/$) to India(INR/₹), but should you need to do India to the USA this post should help you.

I personally use Transferwise to do the transaction. The minimum/maximum amount that one can transfer will be based on which country you are sending the money from. The money generally gets transferred in 3-4 business days and you can get the best rate possible, which means more money to you. The setup process is simple but you will need some sort of identification (driver license/passport), to make sure you are a legit person and not a computer bot. So one can create an account for his/her family and himself/herself and get money with not a lot of hassle.

The entire process (from the person sending money) in short is as follows. 

  1. You need to open an account with Transferwise. You can use my referral link here and get up to 600USD for free with no transaction fees.
  2. You have to confirm that you are a human being and they ask you for either driver's license/passport for identity verification purposes
  3. How much money you want to send. You will get to know at this step HOW much the receiving person will get along with the transaction fees that they will charge 
  4. Who do you want to send the money to- You will need information on the receiving person (their bank account details like account number and routing number)
  5. How would you like to pay: They give options for bank transfer/card transfer (depends on the country you are sending the money from)
Now should you choose bank transfer in the above step, the way that I understand it is that you have to make a transfer to THEIR (transferwise) bank in your home country and then they transfer the money to THEIR (transferwise) bank in the recipient country and then to YOUR bank account finally. In all, this is the reason for the lag period of 3-4 days, given the multiple middle players. OR you can watch this video where he explains the process. 

The other reason I like transferwise is that they will give you a debit card, in which you can open an account in any country in the world and it will function as a traveling card! So instead of getting a cashier's check for my trip to Europe or use my credit card with no transaction fee, I can just open an account in the local currency, and then I can transfer my money to that account. The exact details can be read about over here or watch the video here

What are the ways you transfer money to or from your home country? Let me know in your comments and I can update the post should it be useful.



1 comment:

  1. I use to read your blog while I was preparing for my Usmle’s. Congratulations with your Fellowship!

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