Money

Money transfer to/from India

These are a few options that you can consider while transferring money to India

1. http://www.timesofmoney.com is basically a Times of India website. So it is reliable. The transfer time is usually 10 days and there are no transaction fees and better rates are offered if you are sending $1000 or more.

2. You can open a Citibank NRO/NRE account and maintain ZERO balance for 20 yrs. For just sending money to India, you can open a simple NRO account. The CITI people try to squeeze you into maintaining a minimum balance of $250/$500 but it is not mandatory. Its upto an individual to negotiate and they will be more than willing to let you maintain ZERO balance, after all they want your business :). also check their website www.citinri.com for further details.

3. You can also send checks to India. Try to get an official check from your bank. It will cost you a minimum amount(e.g. around $6 for $1000), or you can also send a normal check.
For an official check it will take the Indian bank about 10 days to encash it and for normal check it takes about one month to get the money deposited in Indian bank account. Exchange rates of RBI will be applicable on this transaction.
There are options of opening a NRI account with Citi bank or ICICI, but that will also make money subject to same exchange rates, just that transaction will be much faster.