With a steady flow of dollar from the U.S. to India, non-banking financial firms are lining up alternatives to regular banking.

Western Union Financial Services, which provides financial services of transferring money as well as making payments via money orders and electronic systems, now offers a lower service fee for customers sending money from New York, New Jersey, Illinois, California, and Pennsylvania to India.

Customers sending up to $500 will pay the standard $10 service fee, with an additional $5 fee for each $500 thereafter. The $10 fee was previously available only for money transfers in Georgia, Texas, and Massachusetts.

With over 21,000 locations in India, Western Union also provides nationwide home delivery. In a major entry into the Indian subcontinent, Western Union has also set up toll free customer service in major Indian languages including Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Telugu and Urdu.

Western Union is located in 195 countries with 46,000 agent locations in the U.S. and 24,000 agent locations in the South Asian subcontinent. It is a subsidiary of First Data Corp. whose portfolio of services and solutions includes credit, debit, private-label, smart and stored-value card issuing.

Other services include merchant transaction processing services, money transfer services, money orders, fraud protection and authentication solutions, check guarantee and verification services through TeleCheck; as well as Internet commerce and mobile solutions.