poshrice

Hiya can anyone tell me how we go about opening a bank account in Australia before we leave the UK we are looking at opening an account with national we could wait till we get there but obviously would like to know that we have done everything we can so we can take it a bit easier the 1st few days after we get there and hubby starts new job pretty much as soon as we arrive :scared: so i will be left to sort a lot of things while he is working.

Kind regards
Poshrice

fraser

FWIW I wouldn't open an account with either national,commonwealth or westpac. From what I hear the only decent big bank are anz.

In had an account with the commonwealth and their service and attitude is piss poor. I've now opened an account with st.george and they're excellent.

I've also heard good things about bendigo.

diddy

I'm with ANZ and they're pants.

The only bank I've heard good things about is St George. That said, it's dead easy to open an ANZ account from the UK. Have a look online at anz.com

You can always change when you get here.

Paul.

poshrice

Hiya thanks for that have looked at ANZ following your post and am not sure what to do as we have to print form off and then post to them we are going to be leaving on the 6th Nov arriving in Sydney on the 8th is this enough time or will the paperwork cross over with us, is it worth leaving till we get there and just going into the branch.

Poshrice

Rich and Angie

hi there
we wanted to open an account before we left for oz, went to HSBC which takes approx 6 weeks to do or apply to common wealth in london which takes a week or two. We found the best thing to do was go to the bank over here and open one which took about an hour much better.
Angie & Rich

renth

HSBC are good, although I've just discovered their EFTPOS cards are not working at Mobil servos for some strange reason.

Avoid Criminwealth Bank like the plague.

fraser

I opened my account with the commonwealth from the UK and was promised a card on arrival, I had to wait three weeks and not even an apology.

I walked in to St.George the other week opened an account and walked out with a card. I also received a visa debit card five days later which is much better than an etfpos as know limit and you can use it over the phone and on the net.

poshrice

We tried HSBC a couple of weeks ago really helpful in branch took all our details passed them on to international banking who proceeded to phone us up to inform us that as we didn't bank with HSBC they couldn't help bye. Have always said i think HSBC is a toytown bank but thought would give them the benefit of the doubt as we wanted to get things sorted oh well there loss.

Poshrice

rich4efc

We're with HSBC, opened the account over here in less than an hour. We've only been here a few weeks but as far as I am aware they are the only bank over here with no bank charges & also they supply a Visa Debit Card, which is rare over here.

Rich

sam&molly

Ditto. The commonwealth's attitude is you should be grateful they let you have a bank account.

Amazulu

Go with HSBC, it took me half an hour to open an account & I walked out with everything I needed. They also offered me a credit card. They are very friendly & efficient. There are no bank charges & you get 4.75% interest. Avoid the Aussie rip off banks (ie all of them).

DianneH68

Wait til you get here. It's much easier. They can fill in all the forms for you and have your account opened within the hour.
If you do it from the UK you seem to have about 180 forms to fill in, and you can't answer most of the questions (like what's your Oz address) cos you don't know til you get there!

Tuxtrip

HALIFAX come under the WESTPAC umbrella (I think). You can open an Australian account through them. I have a brochure somewhere........