Two doors into India
The Reserve Bank of India lets personal transfers from abroad arrive through two separate arrangements, and which one a service uses decides how your family can collect the money. Under the Rupee Drawing Arrangement, an Indian bank works with a licensed exchange house overseas. The RBI's FAQ on the arrangement says there is no limit on the amount or the number of personal remittances, that no cash payout is allowed, and that the money can be credited to an account at another Indian bank through NEFT or IMPS.
Cash pickup has to use the other door, the Money Transfer Service Scheme. Its master direction restricts the scheme to inward personal remittances such as family maintenance, caps each transfer at USD 2,500 and allows a single beneficiary only 30 transfers in a calendar year. Up to ₹50,000 may be handed over in cash; anything above that must be paid by cheque, draft or payment order, or credited straight to the beneficiary's bank account.
Sending to your own account in India
Many people sending from Australia are paying into accounts in their own name rather than a relative's. The RBI's FAQ on accounts held by non-residents describes the two rupee accounts involved. A Non-Resident External (NRE) account accepts inward remittances from outside India, its balance is repatriable, and income earned in it is exempt from Indian income tax. A Non-Resident Ordinary (NRO) account is meant for income arising in India, and its balance can be sent abroad only up to USD 1 million per financial year, subject to conditions.
Two practical consequences follow. Money you might want to bring back to Australia later is easier to move out of an NRE account, so check which account number you give the provider. And the NRE tax exemption is an Indian rule: it says nothing about how the Australian Taxation Office treats the interest.
Checking the sender in Australia
On the Australian side the rule is registration. Moneysmart, the consumer site run by ASIC, says money transfer services in Australia must be registered with AUSTRAC, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, and advises checking before you use one. AUSTRAC's Remittance Sector Register states that any business providing designated remittance services must be registered, and lets you search for a provider by its legal or trading name. A yellow warning mark beside an entry means AUSTRAC has imposed conditions on that provider. Registration is a legal minimum, not a recommendation, but a service you cannot find there is one to avoid.
Reading the table for India
Each row shows the rupees that arrive from A$1,000 after the provider's fee and its exchange rate, compared against the mid-market rate. Moneysmart's own checklist asks the same questions the table answers: whether the advertised rate is the rate you actually get, and how large the margin built into the conversion is. Where a row offers cash pickup, the scheme limits above apply to the person collecting, so a service that pays into a bank account may suit larger or more frequent transfers. The price history shows how each provider's delivered amount has moved from day to day, because the rupee rate and the margin can both change between the day you compare and the day you send.