Nightmare to open NRI account in ICICI bank

[guyaborad]

I have an account with ICICI bank in India. and I have some money in it. and since I am now living out of India for while i became NRI again... so I want to convert my account to NRO account in ICICI bank, but they want a chque to be sent from my location. the problem is most of the banks in Europe dont have a cheque concept any more they abolished it 2 years ago... so i cant give out cheque... but these guys are adamant that they want to have cheque to open an account... they say its cheque or no account... bank here says we cant give you cheque cause we dont have cheque thingy.... any one faced this ? any one can recommend me any other bank for opening up NRO in any other bank ?

 

[guyaborad]

can any one help on this one for me please ?

 

[moindear]

What is the need to convert the account to NRO.

I used to transfer the money from my USA bank account to ICICI Bank account (domestic) using Money2India, which is a ICICI Bank initiative.

 

[mhsabir]

I think if you are there for more than 6 months, then as per RBI you cannot hold domestic account.

 

[guyaborad]

what I cannot hold my domestic account???? I been here since year now ..... what do I do ? also moinder I want to open NRO because the thing happens is when i come back home for vaca time I need to put foreign currency in it and banks wont take the foreign currency when you dont have NRo account, also this account is non tax payble... so it has tax benefits too... sabir tell me more about this rule....

 

[mhsabir]

Even I am reading this now

Reserve Bank of India

I had quoted what I had only heard from people before. I was asked to convert mine & I had spoken to folks at my company & told them I would be back in 5 months, and then they said no need, you can convert if your stay extends.

 

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[moindear]

By God. Been there for one and half year, never knew this 🙂

@GuyAbroad You can still transfer money to other ICICI account, may be someone in your family. Just check out the options here Money2India

 

[mhsabir]

From what I understand the amount which is in domestic accounts is taxable. And if you are out for India for 6 months, you become NRI and the income in your accounts are not to be taxed, hence special accounts called NRO are opened for this. But I am not sure of the legality or the choice of purposefully keeping a domestic account open.

 

[guyaborad]

By God. Been there for one and half year, never knew this 🙂

@GuyAbroad You can still transfer money to other ICICI account, may be someone in your family. Just check out the options here Money2India

yes that may be true, however it becomes taxable, any incoming into an account more than 10 K will be reported by bank to income tax dept. which might think that whomever you are transfering money to has an extra income and thus apply tax on it.. I dont wanna pay taxes twice once at foreign land once in india ...

also if you invest money from foreign land into india in say business , and you get profit, they send it over here to your account abroad, then you send it back to bank NO TAX....

 

[mhsabir]

I might be not be fully correct in my understanding, so please explore before assuming me to be right. Also, I think if you have income earned in India, how it works & whether it is for our sake that these need to be converted or what, I dont know.

 

[guyaborad]

I didnty get your point mhsabir

 

[mhsabir]

What I am saying is that dont believe whatever I am saying to be accurate by default, because even I am sort of repeating what others have told me. Do your own research & conclude. As even I need to do so to confirm what I said.Suppose I have an Indian income as well, rent , business etc... so dont we need to have domestic account for that? Is a question that even I do not have an answer for , and is a valid question against my statement above. Now coming to the question asked by ICICI about the cheque. What if you were travelling to Sweden just now. You will not be having an account/cheque obviously. So will they still expect a cheque from you from a non-existent Sweden account? Seems bogus.

 

[guyaborad]

Okay I have done it before, the thing is for being NRI you have to live out of India for 6 months consecutively. so yah you can open account with that status... also if you indian income which you are delacring anyways in india then I guess you can have an account there ... I am sure as well... since that why I am talking about stuff like remitting income from business to my swedish account and then back to indian account... also if you are travelling , I dont think any travel visa is grater than 6 months ... so you automatically cant open an account. and for ICICI its stupid to ask for cheque, cause banks here dont have cheques.. I dont know man, Its like I am in vicious circle.... No cheque no account , no account you need a cheque to open account, I even had chat with these guys and they called me twice with no resolution... so if you know of any other bank let me know...