Infiintare Societate USA

Living abroad no longer means staying away from your loved ones back home. With NRI Banking Services on a rise, keeping in touch with your family in India is easy, convenient and quick. Many Indians living in foreign countries like US, UK, Canada, etc. benefit from these NRI Services. This banking services are useful to make investments & remittance. Also, many NRI’s opt for these services to avail of loans, bill payment facilities, etc.

The eligibility criterion for NRI banking services is simple and clear. Any Person of Indian Origin (PIO) is eligible to use NRI banking services. An individual is classified as a PIO when:

1) He / she holds or has held an Indian passport
2) He / she has parents or grandparents who were citizens of India by virtue of the Constitution of India or Citizenship Act, 1955 (57 of 1955)
3) He / she is married to a person of Indian origin

The only exception here is for individuals who reside in Bangladesh and Pakistan as they are required to attain special permission from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to use the NRI banking services.

The main highlight of NRI banking services is the remittance facility to India. Being able to send money back home to your family quickly and safely is a big advantage while living abroad. What’s more is that irrespective of where you send the money from, the recipient receives the money in Indian currency. This saves them the trouble of converting money in times of emergencies.

With the NRI remittance service, one can also make bill payments to India from anywhere around the world. However, remitting money to India is not totally devoid of problems. One could face problems concerning the high commissions taken by the agents, cash only policies or the poor service provided by them. Also, in India we face the issue of limited service area.

Another important feature of NRI banking services is loan. Now, even non-resident Indians can apply for loans to buy property in India. Most banks have certain eligibility criteria for loans like monthly income, assets, Indian passport and other important documents.

NRIs also have the facility to make investments in India with this banking services. The Indian stock market and Mutual Funds are some of the various investment options in India. However, as we all know, investments in the stock market are subject to risks and fluctuations. So, it is advisable to choose your NRI Bank wisely.

Furthermore, 3 types of accounts for banking services for NRI. The Foreign Currency Non-Resident Accounts (FCNR) is a Fixed Deposit account and they are maintained only in currencies like US Dollars, GBP, DM, Euro and Yen. The Non-Resident External Accounts (NRE) can be in the form of Savings, Current or Fixed Deposits in Indian Rupees. Finally, the Non-Resident Ordinary Accounts (NRO) can be in the form of Savings, Current or Fixed Deposits in Indian Rupees. However, in this account the funds are non – repatriable.

So, whether you have to send money to your family, buy a home in India or make smart investments, this banking services hold the best solutions for all your needs. NRI banking is indeed an invaluable link that connects Indians living abroad to their home back in India.

Banking online in the UK is now massive. It wasn’t all that long ago that it was the preserve of geeks, early adopters and those afraid of walking into banks to talk to people. Now however every one from your Mum to your technophobe mate does a lot of their banking online. It is just so simple, so convenient and saves time in our busy twenty first century lives.

One of the first banks that spearheaded Internet Banking UK was First Direct. I joined them back in 1998 having been messed around by Barclays too much, and was delighted to find their pure internet only based banking was both a pleasure to use, and was supported by a 24×7 phone banking service that got you straight through to a person, rather than a series of options pressing 1 for this 2 for that and then hold for an age. To this day, I am still with First Direct and value the personal service provided with direct line to UK based call centre staff. Anyway, I’m getting slightly off topic. The main reason I am writing this article is to express my thoughts and passion for online banking.

Over the years that major high street banks started introducing Internet Banking as a service to their customers. Some got it spot on, some came up with appalling bad sites that were not intuitive and made the experience frustrating rather than simple and easy. The online offerings of the major UK banks were also joined by other internet only off-shoots, such as Smile, Intelligent Finance (IF) and Cahoot. Of these, I did temporarily defect to Cahoot and use it for a couple of years, and whilst the basics of the site are ok, the overall service is really poor. I’m surprised they are still around, and hopefully Santander will sort them out sooner rather than later – some of the key issues being frequent outages, poor performance, lack of functionality. You can’t even download statements! They provide a part time phone banking service to back up the internet banking, so if you are having problems on a Sunday, then forget what you’re doing and call back on Monday in office hours (when most people are busy working!).

Another service becoming more common and is a great addition is mobile banking. This started with SMS alerts, which I have benefited from through First Direct for as long as I can remember, and it costs nothing (as long as you pay in at least £1500 per month the whole banking service is free). You can set up mini statements, but best of all you can have alerts with different thresholds, for example set an amount that you want to get alerted about when either a debit of credit exceeding that amount takes place. Even better, and alert that your balance is above, or below a preset amount – great to warn you early that you are either approaching a zero, or approaching your overdraft limit. These alerts can set on your First Direct Credit card too, meaning you can be alerted to any fraudulent activity on your account within 24 hours. Cahoot also provide this service but they huge miss in their offering is there are never any monetary amounts mentioned in the texts, so hey are next to useless. “Payment Alerts your account ending 1010″ or “A balance alert for current account ending 5342″ – Pointless.

The evolution of the SMS alert banking is of course Mobile Banking, where you can access your account details, and perform transactions on a mobile device. With the massive popularity of smart phones these days, the capability of the mobile web browser is almost the same as that of a PC based browser, so moving money and checking balances on the move has become a reality. Some of the banks provide dedicated apps, or cut down versions of their full blown internet bank sites when you visit them from an iPhone of a Symbain smart phone for example. So anywhere you have a mobile signal (i.e. 98% of the UK) and some juice in your mobile, you can do most things with your money that 15 years ago required you to walk into a high street bank during working hours. This, in my opinion is a revolution, and really puts us in control of our money.

Obviously for some people still, they like the face to face interaction, like to queue up and get a bank clerk to perform transactions (which are increasingly done on a version of the same system that is provided as the online banking service) and some people need the assistance of the banks to do what they need to do. But gradually high street banks are changing, becoming places where you can pop in to do your internet banking or phone banking, and to speak to someone regarding major new business such discussing mortgage options of life insurance/investment accounts. I even prefer to do all this online, having opened savings accounts, researched mortgages and set up child trust funds through the internet. But this is they way high street banks are going, and eventually they will start closing down more branches…

If you are with one of the major UK banks and don’t currently use online banking, it is worth your while setting up an online account. The banks can help you with this, but be warned that some of the web sites are much better than others. I’d even go as far say that it is worth considering switching banks to one that provides the most user friendly, functional, secure and fast online banking service. The other factors on current accounts such as interest rates, fees and customer service may vary, but not a lot these days. Google “Online Banking Reviews” to see what others think and how your bank is rated, and make up your own mind.

So you’re thinking about a private car lease – but do you understand the differences between Personal Contract Purchase (PCP) and Personal Contract Hire (PCH)?

Traditionally car leasing has only been available to businesses. But nowadays, personal car leases are available to private individuals – And we’re seeing a big increase in the number of private individuals wanting to benefit from the advantages that leasing a car provides.

There are two types of leasing packages aimed at private individuals; PCP and PCH. The two packages are very similar, but there are two key differences.

1) Can you buy the car at the end of the lease?

PCP – Yes. At the end of the lease, you can pay a balloon payment (which is agreed at the start of the contract) and keep the vehicle. Or you can hand the car back and take out a lease on another new car.

PCH – No. At the end of the lease, you simply hand the car back to the leasing company and take out a lease on another new car.

2) Is road tax included?

PCP – Yes – for the first year of your contract. After that, you’ll be responsible for taxing the vehicle.

PCH – Yes. But the difference here is that you’ll receive road tax for the full duration of the contract. ie, if you lease a car for 3 years, you’ll be sent road tax in the post automatically each year, for 3 years.

Other than that, the two packages are the same. With both packages:

- The depreciation risk is with the finance company – not you
- You can budget accurately
- Interest rates are fixed
- You can add a maintenance package

Why would you choose PCP?

If you’re not used to leasing, you may feel more comfortable with PCP – as you can buy the car at the end of the contract.

You don’t have to decide whether you want to keep the car, or buy it, until the end of your contract – keeping your options open.

PCP is designed to be halfway between the traditional method of buying a car and leasing one.

Why would you choose PCH?

PCH is generally more popular than PCP – probably because there are more PCH deals available!

It’s also really popular with ex-company car drivers – as they’re mostly used to the concept of leasing.

They also know that they’ll want to change their car in 2 or 3 years and don’t need the option of being able to buy it.