Thread: Cheapest way to send/receive a small amount from India to Singapore?

A friend in SG needs a small loan.

The amount isn't big, just SG$ 200.

I can do a wire transfer, but for the wire transfer, the banks would take sizable commissions.

I sent some money to Philippines a few months back. I sent around $120. My bank took around $25 as commission and the receiver's bank also took $25.

Is there any other way to do the two transactions (money to and back from SG) without losing so much in commissions?

You should use Western Money transfer.

Paypal or Moneybookers should be cheaper for small amounts.

It sounds fishey to me wanting to loan small amounts of money via international transactions.

Thinking creatively: how about posting an item of value that can be converted to cash at the other end such as a collectible comic book? Then the package weight is light and it wouldn't obviously be valuable, and risk going awol in transit.

Another idea: a pre-loaded debit card. These can be secure since they require online activation with a password to unlock the cash.

I did an wire transfer. It turned out to be much cheaper than I thought it would be - US$11.5 for a transaction of US$185.

My friend got the amount directly into his bank account (Citibank) without any further deductions.

Sometimes intermediary banks (correspondent banks) deduct fees for international transactions. In this case, no such charges were deducted.

I use citi bank for wire transfers from the UK and they charge me a whopping £25 (39 USD) per transfer. UK rip-off prices as usual. And the local bank scims off an extra $19.50. So using the same bank costs 5x more from the UK.

Originally Posted by Andy101

I use citi bank for wire transfers from the UK and they charge me a whopping £25 (39 USD) per transfer. UK rip-off prices as usual. And the local bank scims off an extra $19.50. So using the same bank costs 5x more from the UK.

Small transactions of a couple hundred dollars seem better with Western Union. Though not so useful to pay vendors are a continuous basis.