ANZ or Westpac? help please
 

I have spent all weekend searching posts about banking on here and my head is now spinning with it!

Help me decide please.

I want to open an account before we go so I can transfer some money for when we arrive in Perth and I have narrowed it down to either ANZ or Westpac.

Can anyone who has opened either from the UK tell me how long it took to open? was it easy to do? and any other comments on either bank please.

Thanks,
Cath

Re: ANZ or Westpac? help please
 

I feel that both are pretty equal, for cost and service. Not sure how long the opening process takes though.

http://www.anz.com/aus/promo/internresaccount/

http://www.westpac.com.au/internet/p...g+to+Australia

Re: ANZ or Westpac? help please
 

we r wit westpac they charge u for walkin in the friggin door....I do an internet tranfer and the bastards charge me $2 for doin the work hmmmmmmm

Re: ANZ or Westpac? help please
 

Hahaha :D I get charged precisely nothing for t'internet banking with ANZ :)



Well, if you don't count the $5 a month I pay for using the account anyway :o

Re: ANZ or Westpac? help please
 

ANZ for me.

Opened my account in two weeks, printed the online application form, posted to them, and got a reply via the post with account details, pretty fast.

Can only deposit for now, once i get to Australia i will need to validate the account at my nominated home branch (Toowong) but you can validate at any ANZ branch.

5A$ a month fee.

Re: ANZ or Westpac? help please
 

ANZ definately !

They seem pretty good, have a great website for banking, AND they allow you to do international transfers to ANY account online.

Its worth it just for that. To do this in Barclays back home, you have to actually go into a branch.

Re: ANZ or Westpac? help please
 

Hi Cath,
We opened a Westpac account from the U.K. www.westpac.com.au and go to migrant banking.Really easy to do.Download forms,fill out and fax back.Letter back in about a week with account details.Transfered some money into the new Westpac account through our Nationwide U.K account.Only £500 to activate account.You can always change banks once you are there.
Will transfer rest of our money through www.ukforex.co.uk. Done a transfer with them already for bond money, with no problems.Also easy to open account with them and all done in a couple of days also.
Hope this helps and gives you a bit of an idea.

Ian

Re: ANZ or Westpac? help please
 

neither!!

National!!! :D

Re: ANZ or Westpac? help please
 

Check out which account you have with them.
We have a Westpac account, aswell as a HSBC account, but incur no charges, we are even exempt from the normal Westpac $5 per month fee :D

Check it out, something sounds wrong ;)

Re: ANZ or Westpac? help please
 

You can open with hsbc or commonwealth or others before you leave. Lots of people are fans of HSBC because they are pretty low on charges but to bank over here in aus you have to go to post office I think which if you see the queues in the post office would put you off ;-) .

Commonwealth also have an international account you can open from UK but they are often slated for bad service. My advice is to not bother - but open one when you get here - its just so easy its unreal so dont bother with the headache.

What we did was opened a bank of queensland account - you can open it immediately when you are here very easily and get given eftpos (switch) cards immediately over the counter. Walk in with passport, etc, wihtin the first 14days of arriving and you are allowed to open it without 100 points of ID. AT least then you have an account - can use it - and buy things. Then take your time and decide which bank is best for you based on where you live/with atm's nearby / with branches are nearby etc. You dont want to endup banking with someone when their nearest atm is 3 miles away and end up paying 2$ a for taking some cash out every time. Also - BOQ only give you an EFtpos card so you cant buy things over net or over 1000$ in a day - but its only your 'first' bank account so sort that out later or get a visa card application filed.

BOQ is not the only bank that will allow you same-day opening and giving you the cards etc - the message is - dont sweat it, its easy to do here, there are FAR better ways to get more value when transfering GBP to AUD

If you are opening an account to transfer money - then this is not a good thing to do. You are better off using a foreign exchange broker HIFX (www.hifx.com) or www.tranzfers.com are two. Tranzfers are more friendly and have had better feedback on here + other sites - if you do register use my referral id if you like so i get more brownie points http://www.tranzfers.com/refer.asp?r=ijcollins

When you look at the rates to compare on their websites - you need to ignore the rates offered on the 'front page' only the rate that you get inside the website is the one tha tmatters when you actually want to trade.

With Tranzfers you can 'load' money into tranzfers -so you can for example put 5 x 5Kpounds lump sums into the tranzfers system - send them the money , then step on plane. When you get over here you open your bank account, logonto tranzfers website - chose one of the 'lumps' of money and click on the 'trade' button, 24hrs later the money is in your account in Ausie Dollars. The reason you would split the money up like this is to be able to manage the exchange rate - or if the rate is fantastitc when you move then do it all in one go - its up to you. They charge 7 quid per transaction. They are tremendously easy to use.

HIfX will not let you 'front load' like this . If you register in UK for HIFX you have to -re-register again in Australia since they have regulation rules stipulating you cannot trrade in australia on a UK account. HIFX trading is all done via fax + Phone - Tranzfers is all online just like online banking. Tranzfers use barclays bank. Trading with HIFX involves faxing multiple 'instructions' and making phone calls to trader etc, its a pain in the ass to be frank.

Tranzfers is all online, you can track your money - see what stage its at, and they are a phone call away both UK end and Aus end so you get help when you need it. I have used them 15+ times for amounts from 1kgbp to 20kgbp. Tranzfers + Ozforex are same company.

If you leave money in a uk bank account and plan to transfer it later - be aware of the daily banking limits for the account a 1k per day transfer limit becomes a pain in ass.

Nationwide(or maybe natwest I forget) have a pretty good/cheap visa card for international use - it uses close to inter-bank rates wihch are better than tourist rates so might be a good short-term access to money for you.

Do Not exhange your money at post office / via your bank - they will really cream money off you compared to the deal you get at HIFX or Tranzfers.

Finally - Read the insiders guide to foreign exchange article on BE under articles, written by the chap who runs Ozforex/Tranzfers - its pretty impartial and good advice contained therein.

Hope this is useful and sorry to cut +paste from another post but didnt know if you'd seen it and im bummed if im going to type it all in again.

Re: ANZ or Westpac? help please
 

ANZ, took 2 weeks from sending application to open cost $5 a month in fees and took 15 mins to validateonce we arrived

My SIL is with Weatpac and I agree with others she seems to get charged for breathing :eek:

Re: ANZ or Westpac? help please
 

we opened westpac over the phone 24 hour service no probs did it because we got a high interest account 5.2% as well as a current account (other banks had poor interest for overseas based account holders) got internet access and phone banking and min. charges-transfered money no probs saw it online the next day.
ANZ website wouldn't work properly on our Mac browser!!
Commonwealth was poor interest rate.
HSBC didn't want our money because we didn't bank with them already!

May change this when we get to OZ but OK for now.

Re: ANZ or Westpac? help please
 

Seriously if youre going to transfer money to aus - check out hifx or tranzfers or ozforex or any of the others - but pls do check them out - banks wont be doing you any favours and these guys make a living undercutting them.

oh did I say use my referral id ? ;-)

http://www.tranzfers.com/refer.asp?r=ijcollins

or if you want to join without referral

www.tranzfers.com

Re: ANZ or Westpac? help please
 

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Still a bit unsure what to do, we hope to be in Perth end April/early May (just waiting to exchange on the house so I can get a date).

Spoke to a guy a HIFX last week and he said because the interest rate was due to go up in Australia it was not looking good for the exchange rate.

We have got some money that we could transfer now but at the moment its earning 5.25% interest here so if I go and say put it in ANZ I won't be getting any interest so maybe its better off where it is for now.

I think I will go for the ANZ account, get it opened, transfer just before we go then open a high interest savings account as soon as we get there and just pray that the exchange rate doesn't go down in the meantime.

Will I be able to open something like an ING account pretty quickly and easily as soon as we get there?

Cath

Re: ANZ or Westpac? help please
 

I dont think it matters much which bank you open your account with, what's more important is if you stay in oz who do you use then for the long term?

So intially open with whoever you like, but once you are settled check out some of the credit unions or community banks for a better deal. Especially look out for fees and charges and credit card interest rates etc