Opening an Indian Bank Savings Account

gvw121

Hi guys,

As you know we do not earn a great deal enough from the range of savings products that are available the UK. I spoke to my girl friend who is Indian and she told me that a savings account in India were offering 7% interest. Being half Indian that I am, I was wondering if it would be possible for myself to open an Indian bank savings account?

Or do you have to be full Indian to qualify for a savings account?

I would appreciate anyones advice on this matter.:j

cashbackproblems

No. Im pretty sure u can open the account but you will incur costs transfering the money over there and more importantly any currency fluctuations will impact the value of your savings.

I have an account with 2 indian banks (icici and bank of boroda) who r based in the UK and offer good deals bt obviously not 7%.

alanq

What deposit guarantees would there be for the Indian bank account offering the higher rate? (UK subsidiaries of Indian banks are guaranteed by the FSCS but don't offer such high rates).

atypical

alanq wrote: »

What deposit guarantees would there be for the Indian bank account offering the higher rate?

They're covered by the DICGC scheme, but that only covers the first 100,000 rupees or ~£1,400. So significantly less than the FSCS scheme but there are quite a few state owned banks in India which offer similar interest rates than those which aren't.

The other thing to consider is that inflation is at 9.6%. I'm not sophisticated enough to know what impact that has on you as I assume you won't be spending the money in India. Don't know if it gets reflected in exchange rates, sure someone else can enlighten us both.

ed123_2

....no, I think you have to be at least three quarters Indian to open an Indian account.....

g_senthil_mm

You can get 7% or even more only if you move the money to india and open an fixed deposit in an Indian bank (SBI, Indian Bank, ICICI, HDFC etc).

I have few fixed deposits opened in 2008/2009 wherein I get 11.5%.

Obviously you are covered for only £ 1400. However most of the indian banks are nationalised and extremely reliable.

The key issue is you need to be an resident indian to open these type of accounts.

Barnetboy

Are there any tax implications on any interest you get?

g_senthil_mm

Yes there are tax implications based on your annual earnings.

humphrey12

Dont do it anyone can but the are horrendous to deal with

gvw121

g_senthil_mm wrote: »

You can get 7% or even more only if you move the money to india and open an fixed deposit in an Indian bank (SBI, Indian Bank, ICICI, HDFC etc).

I have few fixed deposits opened in 2008/2009 wherein I get 11.5%.

Obviously you are covered for only £ 1400. However most of the indian banks are nationalised and extremely reliable.

The key issue is you need to be an resident indian to open these type of accounts.

Yep your right I spoke to my girl friend who spoke to her dad and he said that you have to be an indian resident. She will be offered like 7% interest annually for 1000 days something like that. The bank shes gonna invest her money is called "indian overseas bank"

cskay

Saving in Indian bank even for people of Indian origin (any quaters Indian ) is not that straight forward. There are a lot of factors you need to know about. Moving the money into India is easier but getting it out may not be. You need to make sure you are opening the right kind of bank account. With a standard bank account you wouldn't be able to easily repatriate your money back to UK. My signature has a link which describes various kind of NRI accounts. Note that you don't need to be Indian citizen to open these accounts. If you qualify for an OCI card and have it, you have most rights that an Indian has and hence can open any bank account in India.