When you go overseas for working in an organisation there, it is natural for you to miss your homeland. It is inevitable that you will miss the company of your loved relatives, whom you have left behind in your homeland. You will feel like being in touch with them and contributing to their wellbeing in some way. Abroad Indians feel that remitting money to India to aid their relatives is an ideal way of enabling their wellbeing. Therefore, NRIs send money to India to enable their aged relatives to pay their home maintenance bills and for their personal purposes. NRIs despatch money to India so that their siblings in India can pursue their educational objectives. What is being observed is that, gradually, more and more NRIs are counting on online remittance service to despatch money to their loved ones in India. There is a variety of reasons behind this trend.

Online remittance versus traditional remittance

Online remittance services have wowed NRIs because of their user-friendliness and their swiftness. Remittances are usually sent to India within 2-4 days. Sometimes, they are sent even sooner. Online remittance services are extremely secure because of the state-of-the-art encrypted technology employed by them. The confidentiality of the transactions is maintained by the online remittance service providers. Even the privacy of the bank account details of the senders and the recipients is maintained. Thus, safeness of the transactional process is a factor, which has impressed several NRI remitters.

Online remittance services have gained popularity also because of their 'customer support teams', which solve the doubts of the customers regarding the transactional process. The customer support executives of established service providers are skilled, eloquent and knowledgeable. In many cases, the customers find such interaction with the executives useful.

Online remittance service providers permit you to track the status of your remittances till they reach the intended beneficiary. That gives you a feeling that your remittance is in safe hands and is on the way to reaching the desired recipient. When a remittance reaches the recipient, the sender sometimes receives an SMS/email from the service providers mentioning the successful transaction. This updated information is really helpful. Also, online remittance service providers charge low/zero transfer fees and provide competitive exchange rates, making the transaction a cost-effective one.

As opposed to these advantages, conventional money transfer methods like money orders, demand drafts and bank cheque transfers take longer to reach the recipient. There is no way to track the transactional status, with the exchange rates generally being tilted in favour of the remittance service provider. The transfer fees charged are higher than the ones charged by online remittance service providers.

Thus, it is unsurprising that online remittance service providers have caught the attention of the masses strongly.