jseni01d

For those with a bit of time (ie. years) before they need to have their AUD/NZDs, opening an account with Citibank or an offshore bank like Bank of Ireland means you can change as much or as little as you like between a variety of currencies online at any time. Although these banks don't give quite as good rates as the currency specialists, you have the freedom to buy, say, a few hundred AUDs each time there's a dip in the AUD's value without any need for wire transfers, international phone calls or commission (apart from the 1% commission built into the rate), and without having to commit yourself to exchanging all or nothing at one rate. Since you also don't have to limit yourself to the 2 currencies you're interested in, while you wait for opportunities to accumulate AUD/NZDs you can take advantage of the higher interest rates attached to some currencies (over 10% on the South African rand, for example).

Cheers,
John

Black Sheep

How do you know all of this John?? Are you contemplating trying this, or have you already started?? Have always wondered why more people don't try to play the currency 'game', and just from what I've seen happening to the NZ$ this past year there would seem to be potentially large 'profits' in it. So please tell me, does tax on any 'profits' come into this anywhere?

TA!

helenvo

Guys - you can also buy a 'pure currency option', which means that you can set a date in the future, and lock in to the option to exchange your sterling at a rate agreed on the date you take the option. When I spoke to Lloyds TSB a few weeks ago, they were offering a rate of NZ$2.88 for any time between now and November (US style option, a European one gives the option to buy on a specific date)- so I could take my money at that rate if it was good, or leave the option and convert at the Nov rate if it was better that that I'd contracted in to. The downside . . . it's expensive - about 1% of the funds you're converting, with no refund if you don't take up the option - that said - if the exchange rate moves too far against you, its a way of covering your back!!:lecture:

Alan Collett

Thanks Nicki.

An online currency converter (real time I believe, courtesy of Halewood International Foreign Exchange) is also going to be added to the Go Matilda site early next week:
http://www.gomatilda.com/personal_issues/financial.cfm

Best regards.

bored_bean

I get a daily pound/foreign exchange email from http://xe.com it's free. There is also fxhistory.com which allows you to get daily rates for a long way back in CSV format. You can then put them in a spreadsheet and make a nice graph of currency fluctuations.