Madster

Hi All

Have searched for a while now to find some threads I remember reading ages ao with regards to bank versus Hifx etc, however can not find them and transferring monies in 7 days time.
Hubby insists that there is no diffrernce between lets say commonwealth bank and Hifx in interest rates, that makes me wonder is it hidden costs that people are picking up on, we have been give a load of small print to read but with movers coming tomorrow and hubby still not got round to this I am now panicking about the financial boo boo we could be about to make.
Does anybody have any advice or know of a comparision website, where it compares all companies / banks and their various rates instead of trawling through the individual websites?
Many thanks
Madster

louie

I take it you mean exchange rates not interest rates?

What we did was set up accounts in advance and then check the online rates/ring round the companies (in our case, Barclays, Ozforex and HiFX) on the day we needed to send our funds and used the one quoting the best rate. You can try setting one against the other but rates move quickly so you have to do it all pretty sharpish for them to hold a rate for you.

I don't think there is any way to compare in advance because it all depends on how much you are transferring/how much they want your business on any particular day.

Pam

Out of interest, how did you actually trabsfer your money out of your UK account? Our bank says we need to do a CHAPS, but we are leaving our money here to see if the ER increases, so not sure how we are supposed to take CHAPS in to the bank? We originally thought we could via Interent banking, but that's too simple for our bank! :curse:

Madster

Yes sorry meant exchange rates, can you tell I am stressed
Transferring about 200k, so from what I understand as long as over 30k, there should not be any extra charges from Commonwealth bank.
Did consider leaving the money here waiting for better rate, but everyone we have contacted are advising against it, saying if antying stick it in a high interest savings account over in Oz where rates are better.
Suppose better wait to the day, talk about extra stress, esp as we are in mid air when the monies come trhough on our way to a beach in Malaysia somewhere, hope they have decent phone connections over there.
Cheers
Maddie

GinaUK

Open a Halifax Variable Rate Web Saver account. (It's got to be the Variable Rate Web Saver account not one of their other ones.)

Then transfer the money from your bank account into the Halifax account (as you are still in the UK at the moment, you can do that with CHAPS to keep your bank happy).

Then later on, when you live in Oz and want to transfer the money, you can do it with internet banking. I phoned the Halifax recently to find out if they have a daily limit for transfers from the Web-Saver account and the answer was that the daily limit is £2 million. So, unless you're absolutely super super rich, I reckon that should do you .

Gina

P.S. I forgot to say that you can open the Halifax account over the internet, but then need to prove your identiy first before you can use it. So, don't leave it till the last minute before you're off to Oz.

Pam

Thanks Gina, will have a look now - although flying out on 18th so may already be too late, but I'll give it a go!

kbdb

Hi

I compared the commonwealth bank one with the HIFX one, a few weeks ago, and the commonwealth bank one was a few points shorter than HIFX. I know talking cents isn't much (think it was .05 less) but if you're talking 200k, that will chalk up a bit i'm sure.

Good luck

Karen

Wol

Thanks to rules and regulations it's not so quick to set up a transfer account than it used to be, so you should have been researching this some time ago. I use OzForex most of the time - phone their Sydney office and you will find them helpful: they might be able to sort out an account in time.

soon to be a sheila

Hi
I have been looking into www.abbeyinternational.com (santander group 6th largest bank in uk)recently and they keep your money offshore in jersey meaning you do not pay tax on your savings.
They pay around 6% gross and upwards depending on account and amount of money in account. Only takes around 3 working days to open an account and if tranferring large amounts of money to oz no fee would be charged. Check details out on there website or a phone number is provided. All looks good to me.

biggy

you should be able to do it via telephone banking

Wendy

Depends which bank mate, I know we could only transfer something really small every day. It would have taked us 56 days to get all our money out (and we didn't have a great deal to transfer)

Pollyana

Thats probably the best way to go at short notice. Say you have been referred to them by this website and that might even help

MartinLuther

Thanks for the link. I've been having problems with my UK account recently and was thinking of an offshore account instead.

Beware that although an offshore bank does not take the tax automatically, you are supposed to declare the interest earned to the tax office of the country for which you are tax resident. So if you're tax resident in Aus or the UK then failure to declare these earning (if tax is due) is considered tax evasion.

moneypenny20

We transferred all our money, at various times through First Direct. Each time bar one we got a slightly better rate than HiFx and another one were offering. It definitely depends on your bank.

Wol

You *will* pay tax, although not in Jersey. Depending on your tax residency and perhaps technical domicile, you will pay the tax in Oz or the UK.