Muzzman

Right - now I've got your attention.

What is anyones experience of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. It seems very straight forward to set up an account before we go, transfer the funds and activate as soon as we arrive. Rate I was quoted today was 2.439, which I thought seemed OK.

HSBC was the other option but you need to have an account with them for at least 3 months before being able to open one up in Oz, and they didn't seem that positive when I spoke to them.

Muzzman

(Less than 4 mths left:scared: )

Don

HSBC - known as Honkers & Shankers.

Elaine M

You took the words out of my mouth!

I was just thinking of asking exactly the same thing. I understand that Commonwealth have been known to issue credit cards immediately on arrival - handy if you're making a lot of major purchases in the first few weeks, before you are working.

Do HSBC do the same?

And has anyone got a good deal on their mortgage from either of these or do you need to go elsewhere for the best mortgage deals?

Elaine M

downunderpom

I got my account with CBA set up before I left UK, as part of my mortgage. (Bought the property almost a year before we finally got out here... Yeah, I know - Nuts!)

They have their share of idiots, but I've personally had next to no trouble with them, certainly less that I had with UK banks (@ankers!!!) and anyway, they've kept Mrs DUP gainfully employed for over a year!

I'd give them 95/100.

GillettFamily

Hi Elaine M

How far are you with your application?

We live just over the moors from you in Riddlesden/Keighley

We have just had request for Meds/PC's

We are just thinking about the house selling eeekk!!

Also any info on the banking would be great - email [email protected]

All the best

Cestrian

I use the C Bank to transsfer the bulk of my money over here. Relatively straightforward: opened up a London Account with them (just one form to complete) they then transferred the money to an Oz bank acct ready for when I got here. Bear in mind that the rate does fluctuate and that you can only fix it once you have transferred the funds to them unless you go for one of those fancy forward purchase agreements. Good luck

ANA123

We have accounts with both of these banks!

We opened the hsbc one before leaving (you dont need to have banked with them in the uk to open the online savings account www.hsbc.com.au ) the advantages we found were that the charges are considerably lower than many others (including commonwealth) and the interest rate on this particular account is quite good.
When we arrived however we found the lack of branches a bit restrictive, as we dont have credit cards we had to make a trip into Brisbane cbd every time we bought anything that we couldnt cover with eftpos($1000) in the first few months when you're buying cars furniture etc this can be fairly frequent (bankers cheques are often required as personal cheques not accepted)
So we opened a commonwealth account for ease of access for our wages and kept the bulk of our money with hsbc for interest! We've just had a mortgage and credit card with hsbc who seem to be fairly competitive and will consider newbies!
Commonwealth charges seem pretty high!

Nibbs

HSBC will usually issue credit cards provided you stick the equivalent of your required credit limit on a term deposit for about 6 months.

Watch it though, they are a bit slow to review the position and release the term deposit!

Ours took about 3 weeks during which time we only bought minor stuff on the UK cards.

As MC mentioned, be aware of the $1000 eftpos limit. It's not the banks it's the Government trying to play nanny again!. I nearly spat when the bank told me and asked if they wanted to come round and check I had clean pants on too!! (I did by the way but it was only the beginning of the month )

Elaine M

Lynne and Dave,

Sent you an email.

Elaine M

Ross Davis

In a word - DON'T !!

When we did the same thing, the account was easy enough to set up in London, but after that ..

1) When we arrived, they kept us waiting nearly an hour (remember we had just arrived a few hours before and had very little money in our pockets and were very tired!)
2) When we asked for some money, they said they didn't have any record of our savings transfer...!!!!!!! (We had to ask them to give us some cash to top up the parking meter, while they checked their records!) - blood pressure at 400% and rising !!
3) 30 minutes after telling us we had no money in the country, they then found it!(blood pressure returned to 200% of normality.
4) Any time we popped into a branch to ask them about changing our account to one that would not charge us for most transactions we had to give up because the queues were so long, and the "person you need to speak to is at lunch" (at 11:00am ??)
5) The account they changed us to was not the right one, incurring us a number of charges that we discovered on the next statement
6) The local manager begrudginly agreed to refund our charges and transfer us to the correct account.
7) They finally did this after much chasing, and when we told them we were using our local friendly credit union - they said we may "regret this as a large bank can offer so many more services"..errrmmMMM
8) We 'divorced' the Commonwealth Bank 2 months after arriving in Oz - WAHEY !!!.the wine bottles tasted good that night !


We have friends that (even 12 month after arriving), keep $300 to $500 on them in cash when they go out, just so they don't have to pay so many charges.

Basically, in Australia you are best off going to separate financial institutions for different services, e.g.

- savings with instant access - ING Direct are good with their Savings Maximiser (no charges)
- current account & credit card - VicTeach (you don't have to be a teacher) or many other friendly credit unions (no charges unless you use the ATM excessively), and you can use the Commonealth ATM's result !..and EzyBank (if you shop in Safeway or Woolworths where all cash-backs are free ??)

But please don't let any of this influence your investment choices, maybe we were single out for bad treatment ... Ok Ok there were similar horror stories from some of our other friends here, but maybe they were 'one-offs' too !

Good Luck !

dracupg

I am not sure this is strictly true when you have a mortgage. If you have a mortgage offset account, it makes sense to have all your saving in that account as you effectively earn interest at your mortgage interest rate.

Also, to maximise the balance on your offset account it is sensible to put everything on your plastic and pay it off each month. If you have your credit card with your mortgage provider this transfer would happen immediately.

Most banks offer good deals for this sort of bundling.

ABCDiamond

I fully agree with your comments. It also makes your interest tax free ! (because you dont actually get it, as it is offset to reduce mortgage interest)

But if you have an Offset Account, make sure it is a 100% offset !!

Some banks do it differently, or at least they used to, where they offset the 1 or 2% savings interest against your mortgage, instead of offsetting the savings balance against mortgage balance before calculating interest. The true 100% offset account.

tintin

I went to the CBA in london and had an account set up. In the end it worked out much better not using them! This is what I did and it saved me a packet...

1. took around $2000 in cash
2. Set up account with HIFX in the uk
3. Left money in UK account (lloyds)
4. Came to oz... checked out the banks here...
5. Decided on St George (as they are the only bank that does the equiv of a debit card! and their fees are cheap!)
6. Set up a St George account, card came within 4 days!!!
7. Checked out the high interest accounts here...
8. Best 2 were St George (strange that!) and Citibank which gives 0.25% interest above the base rate, and money is instantly accessible from cashpoints
9. Set up Citibank account
10. Got HIFX to transfer the money to Citibank account, and scored a much better exchange rate than I would have got doing it with CBA.

You cant set up a St George account prior to getting here... but here are the web addresses if anyone is interested....

www.stgeorge.com.au
www.hifx.co.uk (the also have an australian branch now which is actually run out of their NZ office)
www.citibank.com.au (offering 5.40% interest - no catches!!)

Muzzman

When I started this post the rate I was quoted from CBA was 2.439, which I thought seemed OK.

We have sat on the cash from the house sale and today the rate quoted by CBA was 2.643.

Anyone else looking to move the cash at the moment?

The question is to stick or twist.........anyone with crystal balls ??

Muzzman

Less than 9 weeks to go!!:scared: :scared:

swiss tony

Yes, I started a thread yesterday (and a poll) but had only a few responses! I am confused what to do, I will have a little bundle after my house sale, have been wondering about buying a forward contract at todays exchange rate. Am nervous as I have no idea about forex etc.

From what I have read in the last few days (done some research!) I personally don't think the dollar will remain weak against the UK pound so am very close to doing the forward contract thing..... am about to cal HIFX for some more info....

Regards

ST