Which Bank?
Oct 27th 2008, 12:22 am
#46
Auntie Fa
Joined: Nov 2006
Location: Seattle
Posts: 7,344
Re: Which Bank?
It depends on what sort of account you're after. Bank West have got a really good interest rate on their savings account 8.5% - http://www.money-au.com.au/banking/index.php
Oct 27th 2008, 7:05 pm
#47
UK migrant now in Oz
Joined: Apr 2006
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 56
Re: Which Bank?
Has anyone else successfully setup an account with Citibank before arriving in Australia.
The account pays interest but one problem is that you can only organise online payments to bank accounts or companies in your home country (UK in my case), international online payments are limited to other Citibank accounts. To make other types of payments you have to use telephone banking. They do give you a card though, which you can use to get cash out of ATMs in the currency of the account, which is pretty useful. So using this you can get AUD cash from ATMs in Australia for no fee, having put money into the account using something like HiFx or UKForex (OzForex). This is a very good way to organise cash when travelling to Australia.
Oct 27th 2008, 7:41 pm
#48
Forum Regular
Joined: Mar 2007
Location: Perth, Wait Awhile, Oz
Posts: 122
Re: Which Bank?
Yes it all went very smoothly.
The account pays interest but one problem is that you can only organise online payments to bank accounts or companies in your home country (UK in my case), international online payments are limited to other Citibank accounts. To make other types of payments you have to use telephone banking. They do give you a card though, which you can use to get cash out of ATMs in the currency of the account, which is pretty useful. So using this you can get AUD cash from ATMs in Australia for no fee, having put money into the account using something like HiFx or UKForex (OzForex). This is a very good way to organise cash when travelling to Australia.
The account pays interest but one problem is that you can only organise online payments to bank accounts or companies in your home country (UK in my case), international online payments are limited to other Citibank accounts. To make other types of payments you have to use telephone banking. They do give you a card though, which you can use to get cash out of ATMs in the currency of the account, which is pretty useful. So using this you can get AUD cash from ATMs in Australia for no fee, having put money into the account using something like HiFx or UKForex (OzForex). This is a very good way to organise cash when travelling to Australia.
I tried to open as Oz online account which they ssured I could from the UK. They never received my documents in Sydney (double checked the address), so now we're off to London on Thurs to set up a UK account in $. We can use this over there, set up an Oz one when we get there and transfer the money.
Seems quite straight forward, maybe someone in the call centre getting their wires crossed.
Used HIFX for transfer.
