Online money transfer USA to India

I have been to USA for sometime and one of the thing we all use is online money transfer service from USA account to Indian account for loan payments and other reasons.

I am writing here to share my experience with different service providers I used in pasted to do such remittances.

Exchange rate :
Everyone is the key factor which people take into considering on to move the money right away or wait a little bit, I am no different.

I usually check Exchange Rates to get an idea on current market rates. All the providers promise to transfer at ZERO fee but usually you will rates less than market rate by 20 paisa to 50 paisa. That's how they charge the fee.

So check the difference your provider have and find which one is providing you best rates.

Time it takes:
I am sure this is the biggest pain in this whole process. Time it takes from when you start the transaction from the point you have it in your account vary a lot from one provider to another.

In my past experience there are few sub factors which drives this in your favor or against.

Bank Deposit / Cash Pickup / Draft :
Usually Bank Deposit and Cash Pickup's are much faster then Drafts, which will take its own time to deliver ( consider how efficient courier services we have in india ).

Bank itself :
If you want to transfer to HDFC in india then use HDFC remittance service, same apply to SBI and ICICI remittance. Across bank usually adds upto 2-3 more days.

My Experience :
With my experience I am rating services I have used in past.

XOOM.com ( 4.5/5 ) - good exchange rates - fastest service with rates locked. One time they delivered in 23hrs.

ICICI - best rates - too slow - end to end average 8 days - no guarantee of exchange rates

HDFC - slow - good rates - end to end average 8 days - no guarantee of exchange rates

SBI - ok ok - end to end average 5 days - no guarantee of exchange rates

Remit2India - haven't tried , leave feedback if you have