Having visa-free access to India draws a massive number of unemployed Nepali people in search of jobs. That’s why millions of Nepali work in numerous sectors in India.
But when they receive their salary, a question moves around; how to send money from India to Nepal?
In the past days, it was difficult to do a transaction. People used to send it in letters. Nowadays, the situation has changed. Through different legal and illegal channels, Nepali people transfer their earnings.
In the fiscal year 2019, Nepal received a total of Rs. 128.5 billion of remittance from India. According to the Rising Nepal Daily Rs. 38 billion was sent from the informal [illegal] way.
The data shows that people are still using Hundi—an illegal way of doing transactions—hoping to pay much fewer taxes to send cash. However, sending money ‘legally’ from India does not require paying a lot of tax—or hefty paperwork.
Are you wondering how to send money from India to Nepal? There are mainly three ways to send it. Here are the following:
1. National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT)
NEFT is a service that allows the transferring of funds from any bank branch to other individuals’ accounts. On December 19, 2019, it started in India. It allows a 24×7 transaction.
With this service’s help, from any NEFT enabled bank in India, Nepali people can send money. However, there is a limitation of transferring only up to fifty thousand INR per individual at once.
An illustration of NEFT. Credit: Business Insider.
To send money, the person will require a citizenship, passport, or driver’s license. Also, the person is charged Rs.3 INR per thousand, and GST is also added for using NEFT.
Nepali banks collaborating with Indian banks, such as SBI Nepal, Everest Bank, pay lesser charges.
Furthermore, this service is a part of the Indo-Nepal remittance scheme. Reserve Bank of India and Nepal Rastra Bank collaborated for a systematic remittance. It has now created a hassle-free environment to transfer money.
2. Fund (Wire) Transfer Organizations
Remit organizations such as Western Union, International Money Express (IME), and Muthoot Finance assist in providing remittance services.
Besides, these organizations are also available in every part of India and Nepal. Also, the way of a transaction is not difficult—and it charges a lesser amount.
An artistic picture of the Indian 500 Rupee note.
While doing the transaction, the sender will need to provide their citizenship number, and a unique code will be given. After that, the code should be provided to the receiver to collect cash. Thus, the process will be completed.
This process is much more comfortable. That’s why almost half of Nepali migrants use money transfer organizations.
3. Online Transaction Platforms
Likewise, money transfer organizations, online transfer platforms work the same way. But the procedure is slightly different.
Websites use debit or credit cards to send money. Through these sites, the money can be sent to the receiver’s bank account or ESEWA account.
Skrill is a similar online transfer platform that claims to charge zero amount for the transactions. However, there are other similar platforms that charge amounts to their customers.
But people less prefer to use these types of websites because they fear of losing it. Besides, these sites operate as Bitcoin operating throughout the world. People find it less credible.
Conclusion
Hence, transferring money from India to Nepal is very easy. There are different ways to allocate cash in bank transfers, wire transfers, and online transfers.
It seems a win-win situation with a close bonding between banks, remittance organizations, and much lesser tax fees.
It is also easy to move the thumb and send money through websites in a world full of technology. The only thing is, we need to know about it.
