First about money transfer -
You can transfer from your ABN account to any account in India as you do now, it is cheap and convenient. But ABN will not give you best exchange rates and this makes a difference when amount is large. At any time, you get up to a rupee or more less per Euro as compared to rates of Indian banks. You compare daily rates of ABN and ICICI online and see the difference. A local coop bank in India will give even better rate that ICICI.
You have two options.
One is when you transfer from ABN, transfer EURO instead of Rupees. This way ABN simply sends your Euros to your local Indian bank and they convert in India at a much better rate. The catch is you CAN NOT transfer Euros (or any foreign currency) to any bank account on your name unless it is NRE account. (if you have done such thing in the past it is illegal for you and your bank). You can tranfer to local accounts of your parents or anyone who is not NRI.
The other option is use money2India with ICICI. For this you need to have ICICI account in India. The process is simple, you setup account, tranfer money and send the money to JP Morgan Chase in Frankfurt. The problem is there are 2-4 days between you transfer the money and it actually transacts from ICICI, so you have to speculate the exchange rate.
Regarding Tax
As KM, you are exempt from capital gains tax in NL. As NRI you are exempt from tax in India. You can send any amount to your NRE account without having to worry about tax. You can also send a certain amount to your parents/family as family maintenance without tax obligation. When you move this money to ordinary (NRO or local) account in India, tax is applicable.
sps said:
The catch is you CAN NOT transfer Euros (or any foreign currency) to any bank account on your name unless it is NRE account. (if you have done such thing in the past it is illegal for you and your bank).
Could you justify or provide evidence that it is illegal to transfer Euros to an normal bank account?
I have been doing this for the past 4 years and have had no issues. I agree having no issues does not necessarily mean everything is legal though. Thanks.
morya003 said:
I can partly answer your queries :- 1) I have the same question for Money2India so have written to the customercare and am awaiting their response. Will let you know when I hear something. 2)India has a double taxation agreement with netherlands - however we have to declare our worldwide investments/savings - so they can levy the differential tax on any interest or income on these savings/investments. Which means if your funds in NRE account in India earn a tax free income but that interest will attract a tax in netherlands when you declare it :( Suggest you consult a tax advisor in India first to clarify this. Thanks,
check money2india.eu... icici has launched a new service for europe customers...its free and gives gr8 exchange rates
sdsiyengar said:
People, sure there are a lot of posts in this forum about transfers to India but still I am putting up my question again. The post which is pinned, for example, is almost 3 years old and I would like to have the latest experiences of people.
Firstly, my local bank in the NL is ABN-Amro and in India, I have normal (no NRE ShenRE accounts) savings bank accounts in ICICI, BOI, Canara and SBI. So I can transfer to any of these.
I also have no hurry, so if a transfer takes 2 days or 5 doesn't really count for much to me, except if the currency rate changes a lot in that time period (and that is out of my control, so why worry about it).
Finally the amount - I am looking to transfer around 20 - 25,000 euros. So a difference of even 50-60 paise per euro will make a decent bit of difference.
I read all those other posts about transfers. Till now I have used Foreign transfer option from my ABN Amro internet banking and there I give the BIC code of ICICI Hyderabad and my ICICI account no, and that is it. No problems!!! Will I get a better exchange rate if I use some other transfer method like ICICI's money2india service??? No idea... thus wanting to know your experiences.
One poster suggested transferring via intermediary bank in Germany. I guess that is what Money2India is already doing.
Since I live in NL, to register for money2india, I have to choose "power transfer" option and choose my country as Europe as NL is not in the list. Power transfer is supposed to be very quick but I don't have haste. So is that really the best option for me??? Other options except "power transfer" are not available to me as someone living in NL.
What is the best way of transferring money today.... assuming some of the info in the old posts to be a bit outdated?
Also, I work in NL on a KM permit and also pay my taxes and file my returns here in NL. There is no problem in transferring 25 K euros to my Indian account, is there? Will I have to mention it in my next tax filing?
Thanks for all inputs. Appreciate it.
P.S.: Just looked at ICICI's money2India registration page for new users. Count of residence = Netherlands option ain't there. Now I am confused.. the link "Our remittance charges" link does show option Europe in the list box "Country of remittance" if I choose the power transfer option. But if I cannot register, the question of charging me remittance charges doesn't arise.
So how does it work and how have people in NL used it? Or does the address have no significance (can't believe that)???
Cheers
sds
now icici has a new servie money2india.eu its for europe and its completely free with gr8 xchange rates
morya003 said:
Hi Hi ABN AMRO intercepted my SEPA transfer to Germany. They didnot allow the transfer as the beneficiary is "money2india Europe" and they don't allow that. If you want to transfer money to India, you are allowed to do only through foreign transfer channel. Thanks.
Hey,
What do u mean that ABN AMRO intercepted ur SEPA transfer. Did they return the money bank to ur ABN account after debitting it initially or did they not allow the transaction itself to take place.
In case, they reverted back the mony then how many days did it take. I also want to transfer some money, so in case they are not allowing this mode then probably i will go for some other mode.
