Some of the Best Alternatives to PayPal in India

The past record for PayPal in India doesn’t seem to be good, as they frustrated Indian users by blocking payments to and from India. We all know that PayPal has changed its rules, and they are now enforced upon Indian users. These new rules make PayPal really difficult to use. Why ? Because of so many restrictions. And therefore the need to find some good alternatives to PayPal in India.

PayPal now complies with Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) guidelines. And the new rules are effective from 1 March 2011. This is taken from Official PayPal Blog:

1. Any balance in and all future payments into your PayPal account may not be used to buy goods or services and must be transferred to your bank account in India within 7 days from the receipt of confirmation from the buyer in respect of the goods or services; and
2. Export-related payments for goods and services into your PayPal account may not exceed US$500 per transaction.

Seems that PayPal is now not that useful as it was before. Transfer the amount from PayPal to bank account with 7 days and the popular $500 limit, this is really not loved by many Indian users. Therefore the need to find some good alternatives that work in India.

1) Xoom
No, Xoom doesn’t mean Motorola Xoom. Xoom.com is a payment processor and can be used to send money worldwide. What’s best about them is their simple, easy to use interface and low fees. From the homepage, just select a language, select the country to send payment to and the amount and click on “Send Now”. They claim to deposit the money to Indian banks within 24 Hours. These are some of the major banks supported by Xoom:

• Axis Bank
• Bank of Baroda
• Citibank
• Dena Bank
• HDFC Bank
• HSBC
• ICICI Bank
• Punjab National Bank
• State Bank of India
• Yes Bank
• And many more

For the complete list, click here. For now, these Banks are supported, and one can directly deposit the amount in these banks. To check the status or track the process, one can also use Xoom Track Transaction, by entering the transaction number. One more thing that catches attention is their “Fee Calculator”. Through this fee calculator one can know about the service fee and exchange rate. Check this screenshot:

Isn’t this great to know about the charges and currency rate upfront. No more guessing that how much would the recipient receive the money.

2) Moneybookers

Another good alternative is Moneybookers. The good thing about them is that they too, like Xoom, offer a Fee Calculator. Just select the appropriate options, enter the sending amount, and click on Calculate. Their basic transfer is 1 % of transaction volume and €1.80 if the recipient is withdrawing the money through Bank account and VISA card or €3.50 if withdrawing through cheque.

One thing worth noticing is that it seems they currently don’t transfer the money from USA. This is the notification got on selecting USA:

Due to legal restrictions, our services are not available for residents of United States Of America. Please accept our apologies for this inconvenience!

So for those whose clients are in USA, they won’t find moneybookers as useful.

3) Western Union

And lastly, how can we forget Western Union. They have some pretty good options for sending money to India. To send money online, one just needs a VISA or mastercard or send money by Phone by calling their customer service department.

Now let’s talk about receiving money in India. Western Union have nearly 50,000 agent locations in India. They call it as “Western Union Agent location”. A person can just directly approach any location to pick up the money. The receiver will need to complete a “To Receive Money” form and provide a valid government issued photo ID. And home delivery is also possible through AFL limited. AFL is a courier service in India.

So that’s it. There are these alternatives to Paypal in India. Note that these are not the only ones, but these are just the “best” ones. The list can go on and on, but the aim here was to just list the best payment processors in India.

Please note that the fees applied by all these payment processor’s may change over time. Therefore you are requested to check the fees at the time of doing transaction.