Travelling abroad is always fun. Just the thought of seeing a new place, meeting new people and experiencing a new culture, makes the whole thing sound exciting! While the mere idea of vacation abroad sounds fun there is a whole lot of planning involved. You need to think about visas, hotels, weather and most importantly foreign currency. You need to procure foreign currency and find safe way to carry it around.
Forex services provided by banks, aim at making our foreign trips easy and safer. The forex services offered by banks include exchange of foreign currency notes, travellers' cheques and special travel cards. Let's find out more about the forex services & trade services offered by banks and the advantages of having travellers' cheques.
To begin with, banks exchange currency at a fixed rate for a nominal fee. The most popular currency being the US dollar since it is widely accepted all over the world. You can also exchange INR for Euros, Pounds, and Dirham. You can also request for other currencies like the Chinese Yuan or Yen. What you have to remember is that the exchange rates offered by the banks are a little lesser than other exchange bureaus.
The forex services provided by banks are special travel cards. They are like special debit issued by banks which are credited with a stipulated amount. You can swipe your card or simply withdraw money whenever required reducing the hassles of carrying foreign currency around. Travellers' cheques are another forex service provided by banks. Travellers' cheques are nothing is a cheque of a pre fixed amount which is printed beforehand. It has to be signed and counter signed to be deemed valid. With travellers' cheques you have a few parties involved.
To begin with you have issuer, then the bank who is basically the middle man or agent, a person who buys it and a payee. This is how travellers' cheques work. To begin you have receive your cheques of pre determined amounts usually in pads of fives and tens. Once you receive them you have to authenticate them with your signature in the mentioned area. If you want to en cash your cheque at any point in time all you have to do is present the Cheque at the exchange or merchant location. Counter sign the cheque and make sure the acceptor is a witness.
The great thing about travellers' cheques is that they are accepted worldwide and you will not have a problem en cashing them. Also, it is very difficult to steal a cheque since you need to authenticate with a signature and valid photo identification. They allow the traveller to take advantage of attractive rates of exchange. If you are lucky then you will be able to purchase the cheques at a good price maybe even lower than you expected. So next time you are travelling think of travellers' cheques for added convenience and safety!
