Up until very recently, making a foreign remittance from India was a fairly complex process involving heaps of documentation, multiple visits to the bank and consultation with several members of the bank staff. Recent RBI regulations, however, have made this task easier, at least for outward money transfers of upto USD 25,000 (equivalent) per beneficiary per year. This is just one of the many changes that have resulted from the RBI’s recent focus on deregulating retail foreign exchange transactions and is welcome news to all. According to the new rules, anyone may send a foreign remittance from India with just a letter specifying the purpose of the transfer and basic details of the sender and beneficiary (name and address). There is no need to even fill out an A2 form, which is something that is normally required for all kinds of foreign exchange transaction.
The caveats/ restrictions that apply to remittances made under this scheme are as follows:
-  The funds for the transfer must come from the applicant’s bank account. Cash payment is not permitted and the funds must be withdrawn using either a cheque, demand draft or a NEFT/ RTGS transfer from the sender’s bank account.
- The applicant must declare that the purpose of the remittance doesn’t fall under a banned category as defined in Schedule-I or Schedule-II by RBI. Some of these banned purposes include things such as purchase of lottery/sweep stakes, tickets proscribed magazines, remittance from India for margins or margin calls to overseas exchange, trading in foreign exchange abroad etc.).
- The remittance may not be made directly or indirectly to Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Mauritius, Cook Islands, Egypt, Guatemala, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nauru, Nigeria, Philippines or Ukraine
These new rules have helped make the process of sending a money transfer from India much easier. Outward remittances of this sort can be made through any bank. However, as with everything else in India, news of changed rules and regulations doesn’t percolate to all relevant people concerned with the change of rules. It is indeed very possible and highly probably that most bank staff will not be aware of these new changes to regulations and will therefore still resist doing a remittance of this sort. It is still best to approach a qualified bank branch that process several foreign remittances everyday to handle your money transfer requirement. We at BookMyForex, through our many banking tie-ups, keep abreast with the latest changes to regulations and are fully capable of processing outward remittances under this scheme. Book an foreign remittance order on BookMyForex.com to ensure excellent savings on foreign exchange rates, overall savings and a hassle free remittance experience
About the Author
Manik Varshney is the AVP - Processes, Compliance & Product Management at BookMyForex. Manik has been building the product at BookMyForex for around 8 years. Be it any query on the tax rules on foreign money transfers or forex cards, Manik is our usual go-to-guy.
