Delivery Methods for Money Transfer

When you want to send money home, there are multiple options around how you want to pay and how your recipient wants to receive money; in a couple of back to back blog posts, we will go through some of these.

In this blog post, we will discuss Delivery Methods for remitting money. In an earlier blog post, we talked about Payment Methods for sending money.

Delivery Methods

A Delivery Method is how your recipient gets paid by your Remit Service Provider (either a bank or a private institution that facilitates money transfers) for amount of the money transfer. 

The aggregate amount your service provider will pay the recipient would be the amount you sent minus any applicable fees or charges that the service provider may charge you to use their money transfer service.

Below we list the most frequently used delivery methods, along with a short summary.

Bank Account

Delivering funds into a bank account usually entails providing the service provider with your recipient's bank account information. Once the money transfer is complete, the service provider will direct deposit funds straight into the provided bank account. 

Bank Account delivery is fast and convenient whereby the recipient gets money delivered into their account for immediate use. However, some banks levy service charges on incoming remittance amounts which will reduce the final amount the recipient gets.

Cash Pickup

The Cash Pickup delivery method usually works only for service providers that have an agent model whereby your recipient would go to a physical brick and mortar location and pickup cash for the money transfer. Numerous global remittance companies like Western Union, MoneyGram etc follow this business model whereby they have numerous worldwide locations where recipients can pickup the money transfer amount as cash. 

There are usually no fees associated with a cash pickup as fees were charged upstream whereby the sender paid for the transfer. Also, Cash Pickup usually works fastest since service provider local office will have money transfer information in almost real time the sender initiates the transfer.

So, which Delivery Method should you use?

The answer is, it depends. Based on your needs around urgency of money transfers and convenience, you may choose different delivery methods. 

Obviously, you will want to balance your decisions with the exchange rate you get, which will have a direct relation to yield of your transfer i.e. how much money does your recipient get. Try RemitFinder to see how we can help you save on your next money transfer.

This post concludes our dual back to back discussion about Payment Methods and Delivery Methods associated with money transfers. Happy remitting!

Payment Methods for Money Transfers

When you want to send money home, there are multiple options around how you want to pay and how your recipient wants to receive money; in a couple of back to back blog posts, we will go through some of these.

In this blog post, we will discuss Payment Methods for remitting money.

Payment Methods

A Payment Method is how you pay your Remit Service Provider (either a bank or a private institution that facilitates money transfers) for the intended money transfer. 

The aggregate amount you pay to your service provider would be the amount you want to send plus any applicable fees or charges that the service provider may charge you to use their money transfer service.

Below we list the most frequently used payment methods, along with a short synopsis of frequency of use, associated fees etc.

Bank Account

Paying with bank account usually entails providing the service provider with your routing and account number, and money is directly debited from your bank account. The setup process entails some sort of validation process whereby you have to confirm a debit/credit pair of transactions posted to your account - hence it may take a few days for this setup to finish. This could be a downside if you want to send money home instantly.

Since the service provider gets the money quickly, and since most banks do not charge for bank to bank money transfers, usually service providers do not charge any fees when using this payment method. As a result, the frequency of this could be high. 

Credit Card

Credit card payments are instantaneous so there is usually no wait time which helps if your need is to send money home instantly. The downside, however, is that most service providers charge some fee when you pay with credit cards. You may also have to pay charges for credit to your credit institution. 

Debit Card

Like Credit Card payments, Debit Card payments are also instantaneous. Also, the associated fees could be lower than credit cards since the service provider does not have to pay credit card processing fees to a credit card company. The minor disadvantage compared to credit cards could be that you will need money available at the time you use your debit card, while credit card allows you to borrow money from your credit card company.

Wire Transfer

Wire Transfer payment method entails wiring money from your bank account to the service provider. Most banks would need you to fill a form with the possibility of even going to the bank branch, so this might be a slower option. Additionally, most banks charge customers to wire funds, although this fee may be waived depending on your relationship with your bank, or of you maintain certain thresholds of funds in your account. 

Cash

The Cash payment method usually works only for service providers that have an agent model whereby you would go to a physical brick and mortar location and use cash to fund your money transfer. Numerous global remittance companies like Western Union, MoneyGram etc follow this business model whereby they have numerous worldwide locations where you can send money paying with cash. There are usually fees associated with this payment method use in a brick and mortar location.

So, which Payment Method should you use?

The answer is, it depends. Based on your needs around urgency of money transfers, fee tolerance and convenience, you may choose different payment methods. 

Obviously, you will want to balance your decisions with the exchange rate you get, which will have a direct relation to yield of your transfer i.e. how much money does your recipient get. Try RemitFinder to see how we can help you save on your next money transfer.

In our next post, we discuss Delivery Methods associated with money transfers. Happy remitting!

When sending money home, timing is key

Fluctuating rates a headache for remitters sending money home?

Money transfer exchange rates fluctuate regularly, so if you are thinking of sending money home to your loved ones, the timing of your transfer could make a significant difference in the total amount your recipient gets.

Lets take an example scenario to illustrate this. 

We will examine exchange rate fluctuations for British Pound (GBP) to Indian Rupee (INR). Below is a chart of how GBP-INR rates changed over a 1 month period from 20 Feb 2015 through 22 Mar 2015.

Image from www.xe.com

As the graphic above demonstrates, GBP-INR exchange rate experienced a lot of change during the 1 month duration we are examining in this scenario. Below are some noteworthy pieces of information from the above graphic.

30 day high/low

• Highest rate - 96.36887 on Feb 26, 2015
• Lowest rate - 91.57449 on Mar 17, 2015
• Difference - 4.79438

Some variations within same day and consecutive days

• 96.36887 @Feb 26 4:00 UTC to 95.17701 @Feb 26 18:00 UTC = 1.19186 difference 
• 94.84399 @Mar 11 1:00 UTC to 93.53885 @Mar 11 17:00 UTC = 1.30514 difference 
• 96.36887 @Feb 26 4:00 UTC to 95.16287 @Feb 27 22:00 UTC = 1.20600 difference 
• 94.84399 @Mar 11 1:00 UTC to 92.79128 @Mar 12 18:00 UTC = 2.05271 difference 

Now, lets imagine that you send GBP 1000 home to your family in India. If we apply that amount over some of the above fluctuations of money transfer exchange rates, we get the following high level monetary gains/losses:-

• Savings of INR 4794.38 with the best rate over 30 days
• Savings of INR 2052.71 if sent on Mar 12 instead of Mar 11
• Savings of INR 1305.14 if sent on Mar 11 evening instead of Mar 11 morning

If you are a regular remitter who sends money to their loved ones very frequently, the above savings could translate to significant annual savings for you.

Clearly, timing is the key when you want to send money home!

At RemitFinder, we have tried to solve this exact problem by providing our users with access to latest exchange rates from multiple remit service providers. You can set free custom alerts to stay updated on money transfer exchange rates as they vary. Try RemitFinder to see how we can help you save on your next money transfer.