[GrandTourer]

Hi Guys,

All the financial gurus in the house make some noise... Okay don't make noise, but please answer my following question.

So I have a stock award component in my compensation, part of which is about to vest. I'm planning to sell some of that stock and diversify. The problem is that I'm getting stocks in USD, and I obviously need to first move the proceeds from the sale to my Indian account. Here is where the problem arises.

My broker bank in the US charges a substantial fees on the transfer as well as it doesn't give me the actual exchange rate. From my older colleagues, I have come to know that the exchange rate has been excruciatingly low in the past and some of them suggested I go for a third party online fund transfer entity like TransferWise. I have never used such services before and I did try to send a small amount for test purpose, but couldn't go through because:

1. I couldn't find a way to transfer funds from the broker to TransferWise
2. I wanted to be more sure about the safety and rules around such transfers in India

If any of you have used a service like this one, can you guide me on 1) whether it is safe to use such services? & 2) if answer to 1 is yes, how do I get the funds to TransferWise?

Thanks in advance.

Mods: If there is a relevant thread, please merge it.

[ajmat]

I have used Transferwise from the UK to India.

Pre-Requisite -

I would first check on how one transfers from the stock account to Transferwise bank account.

The process is that you register yourself. You might need to provide some ID credentials related to your address and ID.You might need to provide the stock account detail from where you are paying in.

Once authenticated within a day, you log in and state how much money you wish to transfer also destination account. They will come up with a quote and provide bank account details to transfer the money to.

Almost immediately, you will get notified that the money has reached them and they will advise when the money will be transferred, complete with transaction number. You get notifications.

Only hiccup was when my UK bank tried locking my account, claiming this transaction was suspicious. The reality was that they dont like these new age transfer services

[Comrade]

I used transferwise few times to move USD to India. I liked the service for the ease of use, customer support (human), and effective exchange rate it offers.I had to call them one or two times during initial setup, and they were very helpful with setting up my account.

Transferwise offers one of the best fx rates compared to us banks, Indian banks or third party services like xoom etc. Also, Transferwise is one of few third party services which allows high limit (upto $1M I think) per transaction.

Coming to your questions

1. I found transferwise to be safe & trustworthy. One time I had to move $300K USD in a day, and apart from wire transfers, only transferwise was ready to move such amounts. Usually its not advised to move such huge amounts using third party but I already had years of experience with transferwise for smaller amounts, and transferwise is pretty popular on many expat forums.

2. The way this works is you will setup your transferwise account and complete verification formailities through email or phone etc. Once this is done, you will initiate the transfer on transferwise.

Based on the amount to be transfered, TW will propose options to move money from your US broker to TW. If amount is less than $15K, you can initiate an ACH transfer directly through TW. They would ask you to provide your broker's routing number and your bank account number with your broker, and will move the money themselves. Broker fees will be nil here.

If amount is more than $15K or if your broker doesnt support ACH (sometimes they dont support ACH for W-8BEN accounts), then you can choose wire transfer while completing the transfer in TW. Here TW will provide its bank account details in the US (a wells fargo account in San Francisco), and you need to call your broker and intiate the wire. Because this will be a US domestic transfer, there wont be fx loss, and broker fees will be less like $10-$25.

Hope this helps. I may have missed some details. Will be happy to provide more info. Cheers!

[dhanushs]

I've been using TransferWise for receiving funds since a long time now. Works flawlessly. Takes 2-3 days max, unless there are holidays in between. Was using PayPal before, but, this seems the best option.

[ValarMorghulis]

Have used Transferwise extensively from EU to India.
-I registered the Transferwise account in my bank
-Transferred from bank to Transferwise account (like any other bank account transfer)
-Transferred from Transferwise to Indian account
works like a charm

[akshay4587]

TransferWise it is.

Have been using TransferWise since 2016 to transfer funds to India, it has been flawless.

Offlate the transfers happen within seconds irrespective of day and time.
That is faster than my local bank transfers here.

[GrandTourer]

Originally Posted by Comrade

Hope this helps. I may have missed some details. Will be happy to provide more info. Cheers!

Thanks Comrade for the detailed post. This helps a lot. You are correct about the ACH not being available with my broker. They do not support this. I had to setup the Wire Transfer instructions on the broker account.

Originally Posted by ajmat

I have used Transferwise from the UK to India.

Pre-Requisite -

I would first check on how one transfers from the stock account to Transferwise bank account.

Thanks Ajmat! Yes, I called up my broker institution and figured out that I need to setup wire transfer instructions to the intermediary bank (TransferWise). Apparently, there are no fees for local wire transfer for our company. Hopefully there aren't any hidden costs when I actually initiate the transfer.

[thesquaremile]

My experience with Transferwise has been inline to what others have mentioned here. Been using it for ages to transfer money from my UK accounts to Indian NRE or parents current accounts. Process is simple enough:

- Transferwise give you the option to either transfer funds to their account, or use your own (Debit card).
- Confirmation is pretty much instantaneous
- depending on the amount, the money usually gets transferred within a day.

Prompt notifications all along, safe and secure.

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by GrandTourer

]If any of you have used a service like this one, can you guide me on 1) whether it is safe to use such services? & 2) if answer to 1 is yes, how do I get the funds to TransferWise?]

I've used both TransferWise and Xoom extensively through the last several years. About transferring the funds to them, they have two options:
a) you can provide details of your account which they'll verify by putting in small deposits (which will reversed later) - or - a debit card

b) you can transfer funds to their account

Option b) often works faster. I'm assuming your trading account also has a current account in which the stock value will be deposited in, once liquidated. You can use that to fulfill the remittance.

[GrandTourer]

Thank you guys. I have setup the wire instructions in the broker account to send funds to TW. Today I got a mail saying the instructions are approved. So I guess it should be quite straightforward now to transfer funds to my account here.

[gopi_rm]

I am using Transferwise since 2016 and it works flawlessly. The transaction from Germany to India takes around 1-2 days. However now you can preload some money in advance in any supported currency and transfer to Indian account anytime instantaneously.

[QuadraticAmoeba]

I have always transferred funds in USD and let my Indian bank (Citibank) work out the exchange rate. It doesn’t seem to be very bad, and takes out any third party.

[AnInternetUser]

Ah, my time to shine! A couple of clients are based in the UK and I have also worked with two fintech brands as I'm in the finance space.

My clients used regular bank transfer earlier, but it was very expensive as we're all aware. Switched to TransferWise earlier this year and I couldn't have been happier. The costs are very low and the transfer has been instant most of the times.

One of my service providers requested I use Veem while paying him, so perhaps that's a popular alternative, too.

Apart from these, I've spoken to a few people from Stockal and North Loop and their visions seem pretty interesting. I haven't personally used either of these nor am I affiliated to them, but it might be something to look into, especially since both are attempting to solve a similar issue. From what I undertand, they're both trying to build a more comprehensive solution than just international transfers.

[Ruchitya]

Another alternative, and one that I have used, is to transfer the amount in USD to your Indian bank. I use HDFC, and they convert $ to INR and credit that to my Indian account. The US broker will only charge transaction fees on this. Problem with them is the low conversion rate, which you can avoid in this manner. P.S. SBI offers good USD to INR rates, and private banks might offer you slightly better rates on a per-case basis.

[groom]

I have used SBI in that Country , SBI Japan and SBI USA for transfer of funds. It is flawless, charges are less but rates a assured and marginally lower than Transferwise.

Once i found how convenient and how fast transferwise is, i have never used anything else. My fastest transfers have happened within a few hours. Many a times the delay is in the RTGS / IMPS from the local bank to the target account and not from TrasnferWise.

So, Transferwise is safe, convenient, fast and can be easily done by app. The first time setup and verification takes 3days time, rest should be jiffy.

Here is what I would do -

Transfer the proceeds to the local bank account / local currency, that is USD.
From the local account, setup the transferwise transfer. TW will give you an account no. to transfer to.
Local account to TW account, from TW Account to your target currency account in India.