How to pay tuition fees abroad from India: Know about the best options for you

Getting enrolled into a foreign college or university to pursue your higher education is a remarkable milestone. You must have dedicated quite some time into cracking the exam and making it into the college.

After all of this effort, it would be disappointing if you were having difficulties paying a foreign college’s tuition fee. Universities in different countries recognise various forms of payment. The payment process varies from college to college.

To maintain the authenticity of the phase, you should contact your university to determine the best method for transferring your tuition fees. 

Different options to pay your university fee abroad from India

We have compiled a list of the most widely known payment methods to pay the tuition fee in a foreign university:

• Paying tuition fees via wire transfers: Wire transfer is a safe and easy way to pay for your tuition at a foreign college or university. Wire transfers are one of the most popular methods for students to pay their tuition fees.

International money transfers take just 12 to 48 hours on average, which is impressive considering how much money you can handle at once. When doing wire transfers, you will be paying a fee, but if you do it via BookMyForex, the fees can be greatly reduced and you end up saving a lot of money.

If the university supports this form of payment, you will be able to quickly pay the fees since the whole procedure is straightforward. The whole process is clear and transparent, and neither the one who is transferring nor the receiver should be concerned.

• Paying tuition fees via forex cards: A forex card resembles a prepaid card, such as a debit card. With a forex card, you have the option of filling your account with funds in a foreign currency. Since it is accepted worldwide, you can use your forex card to pay for tuition, bills, or withdraw money in foreign currency from an ATM.

The biggest advantage of using a forex card is that you can load it when the currency rates are in your favour. You can do that well in advance before you have to pay the fees. 

Nothing beats a forex card in terms of convenience and comfort. Chip and pin technology is used in the forex cards. This provides you with an additional layer of protection, providing you with a sense of safety and much-needed relaxation. In addition, if you lose your forex card, you will have it hot listed in no time to prevent it from being misused.

BookMyForex is an online forex remittance marketplace where you can purchase a forex card. Unlike banks, BookMyForex charges nothing to issue a forex card. Also, some sites, such as BookMyForex, allow you to reload or unload your forex card for free, which is awesome and can save you a lot of money.

• Paying tuition fees via demand drafts: This is an alternative form of paying the tuition fees, although it is not commonly used.  You must make a demand draft for the amount of money you want to transfer to the university. The outstanding amount will be deducted before the rupee value has been converted into the foreign currency you choose to pay in.

When it comes to paying fees by demand draft, however, there are several disadvantages. When the demand draft is ready, it will be sent to the university, which will take much longer, and there is a chance that it will be ripped or misplaced, which will be an even bigger problem to deal with. 

This whole process takes somewhere between 10-15 days and that is why parents have stopped paying fees for foreign currency demand drafts. However, there are a few foreign colleges that only accept demand draft as a payment medium. So, it is important that you confirm it with the university first.

• Paying tuition fees via money order: This is also one of the methods available to pay the tuition fees. A money order is an order from the Post Office of India to pay an amount of money to the individual in whose name the money order is sent via the Post Office’s department. A ‘Payee’ is the individual named on the money order as the receiver of the funds. The benefit of sending money to someone via money order is that the money is delivered to his or her home or place of business.

Money orders are rarely used by people these days to pay tuition fees in a foreign university. One of the biggest cons is that you can only transfer a certain sum in a single transaction, so you might end up having made a lot of money orders. 

The whole process is quite inconvenient especially when you have something wire transfers available. 

An overview of charges involved while paying your college fee abroad

• Nostro charges: A Nostro account is a bank account established in a foreign country for the purpose of performing transactions in that country’s currency. Most commercial banks, for example, maintain US dollar accounts with their correspondent banks in the United States to enable the settlement of interbank and consumer transactions in US dollars.

This is true for all of the world’s big currencies. As a result, the bank refers to them as Nostro charges. The fees now differ from one bank to the next. If you went straight to the bank, you would be charged an outrageously high fee. However, the strategy here is to use an online forex and remittance platform like BookMyForex because we have many tie-ups with a number of banks and you will profit from paying the lowest possible nostro charges on a transaction.

• GST charges: These are the GST rates that will refer to your international transactions. If the aggregate amount of funds you are transferring is less than INR 1 lac, a 0.18 percent GST rate on the overall gross value of currency will be levied, with INR 45 as the minimum tax.

If the aggregate amount of funds you are transferring falls between INR 1 lac and INR 10 lac range, a 0.09 percent GST rate will be applied to the total gross value of the currency, plus INR 180 in other separate costs.

If the overall gross value of the currency you’re exchanging surpasses INR 10 lac limit, a 0.018 percent GST rate will be applied to the total gross value of the currency, plus INR 990 in other costs.

As mentioned above, GST charges would clearly depend on the amount that you have to remit abroad in form of tuition fee.

• KYC charges: For your transaction to go through successfully, you have two choices for getting the KYC documentation completed. You may either complete your KYC in person at a bank branch, which will be free of charge. However, online remittance platforms such as BookMyForex offer a completely digital and paperless KYC that can be completed from the convenience of your own home. The fees vary by bank, but some banks charge about $25-$30 for the online KYC feature.

This is a fantastic feature to have around the current COVID-19 situation because you’ll want to avoid going to banks where there are a lot of people and you could end up putting yourself in danger.

Please note that the Reserve Bank of India has begun collecting 5% TCS (tax collected at source) on foreign transactions exceeding INR 7 lac. If you’ve not made any other transactions, there would be no deductions if the transaction is less than INR 7 lac. However, if your cumulative amount is INR 7.8 lac, TCS on INR 80,000 will be deducted at a rate of 5%. (Amount post INR 7 lac will be covered). You will be paying INR 4,000 in this case, which may be claimed later when you submit your regular income tax returns.

In some situations, the beneficiary’s bank can deduct a small fee for the cross-border transaction, so it’s always a good idea to double-check with the beneficiary’s bank.

Why is BookMyForex your best option for sending money abroad?

• Booking at Live Rates: You get the chance to take advantage of the benefits of booking your forex order and paying your tuition fees at live rates only on BookMyForex. We do not have a fixed currency rates policy and instead use live rates. If you go to a bank or another money exchanger, they will give you the rates that are most advantageous to them and justify why they hold a fixed rate for the day. On BookMyForex, this is not the case, and you can save up to 3% by using the live rate function.
• Rate Hold Facility: On BookMyForex, you can transfer funds overseas at the best rate for any given day. The same rate can be sustained for a period of three working days. To use this service, you must first pay a refundable fee of 2% of the total sum you wish to exchange.
• Rate Alert Feature: Enable our rate alerts to receive regular updates on the current rates of any foreign currency. You can choose your preferred rate for the foreign currency that you have to send the tuition fees in and we’ll notify you right away. This removes the need to continuously monitor currency rates.
• Best Exchange Rates: On BookMyForex, you get the best exchange rates. You’re probably wondering how we go about doing that. We compare the exchange rates offered by Indian banks and approved money exchangers in your region and present you with the best options. You won’t have to go to the bank or the vendor to compare; we’ll do it for you when you relax at home.
• Fully Online Remittance Process: Now you can perform each and every step online while booking an international money transfer order. From uploading the documents on our portal to paying via netbanking, we have it all covered here at BookMyForex. 
• Avail Exclusive Student Discount: BookMyForex provides exclusive deals to students on remittances and travel card sales that are relevant to their studies. We promise that all remittances for educational purposes will have the best deal applied.

We know the whole process can have a significant financial impact on you, so we make sure that you save as much as possible. 

How to pay your tuition fee with BookMyForex?

Follow these four simple steps to pay the tuition fees via BookMyForex:

Step 1: Visit bookmyforex.com & check your eligibility for outward remittance. Provide yours & the receiver’s details along with the purpose of transfer.

Step 2: Post that, simply upload a few KYC documents on our portal.

Step 3: Complete your payment via online Netbanking now

Step 4: That’s it. You have now booked the order at the best available exchange rates. Your remittance will be done by our partner banks.