Damson

Last year we were all systems go to come to Australia, probably later this year. On this basis, in October last year we forward-purchased $s at a very healthy rate fortunately - we look at the rate now and realise just how lucky we were. However, because of the current economic climate and the risk that OH won't get a job over there, we've had to put our plans on hold for now. Our trade will go ahead in October when we pay the balance to HiFx which is all well and good. However, we will then be 'left' with quite a few $s, when we would rather have £s at the moment. Our plan therefore was to just trade the $s in to get back £s, as we can't afford to leave it as $s until we come over. I contacted HiFx and said that I wanted to do an immediate 'trade' and sell the dollars straight back to them. However, they said that it would be classed as a new trade and therefore treated as a seperate transaction to the purchase and, that the $s would have to be paid into our bank account before we proceed. Our problem is that we don't have a bank account that the $s can be paid into ie, an Aus one. We can't open an Aus bank account as we don't know when we are coming over and I understand that you can open an account whilst still here in the UK you have to move over (or just visit?) to activate this.

So, does anyone know where we can pay our $s into so that we can then trade them back into £s?

Any help very much appreciated.

PSI'd love to pay it into some of your bank accounts by the way, but I don't think OH would be too happy!

ABCDiamond

Bang goes my idea then

An interesting situation.
Can you open an A$ account in the UK, the same way that I can open a £ account with HSBC in Australia.

silver

I think you may be able to with HSBC in the UK also, I thought it was a premier account or something such like..

twizzle

damn!
We're wanting to get $ from £ but the rate is so bad... would be happy to get some at what you must have got close to 2.5.
Sorry, not sure how you can get around it.

MartinLuther

At worst you can send the $s to you UK £ account and they should convert them when it hits your account. Check this with your bank. I suspect they charge about £30 and a poor exchange rate for this service.

I suspect the best plan is (as mentioned above) to open a $ account in the UK.

Alternatively I can process it through my account if you wish

louie

You can open an account with Westpac and will be able to withdraw from it if you go and visit them in the City of London with your identity documentation. Or at least we did a couple of years ago. Try giving them a ring - 0207 621 7000.

Make a weekend of it, spending some of your profits!!

louie

One thing to think about if you are still sure you will be going eventually, is that interest rates are higher in Australia. Unless you think sterling will strengthen before you go (so that you can make a profit on reexchanging sterling to dollars), you might think about leaving some of your dollars in dollars earning dollar interest rates.

Westpac are currently paying me 2.75% on my eSaver account plus there is a bonus of 1.55% on new accounts for the first 4 months giving you 4.3% at the moment. 10% tax would be deducted at source (as you are non-resident) and you'd have to pay over more tax in the UK unless you are not a taxpayer, but no more than you'd pay on UK interest.

Scotty1

you can open and activate an HSBC account when you are still in the uk. If you have enough savings or income to qualify for a premier account they will do this for free. It takes two/three weeks to sort but you can then transfer easily between dollars and pounds.
If you don't qualify for premier (and its worth talking to them if you have more than £50k equity in house as they allow you 6 months to transfer this in from opening), it costs to set up the account and I don't know how easy it is to transfer.
Good luck - and I so wish we had bought forward last year, but our plans were not that fixed at that point!

jad n rich

[HSBC in OZ wanted to charge son $200 to open UK account despite him being a HSBC customer for 3 years.

ABCDiamond

HSBC, for some reason, are now charging for every country, eg: Singapore HSBC charge SG$200 to open a UK account, Hong Kong charge HK$1600 to open the UK account, etc.

It seems like it is a new HSBC worldwide practice. HSBC UK charge £100 to open an Australian account.

fish.01

Or www.ubank.com.au are paying a standard variable rate (ie not a limited special rate and not a fixed term deposit) of 5.11%.

jad n rich

If he waits till he gets to the UK do they charge?? The problem being there, I think he needs a perm UK address, which he wont have for a while Or does being a aus HSBC customer mean they realise your not a drug baron with money to launder.

Jeez remember my first bank account, could hardly reach the counter and opened it with 5 pound. Life was so simple then

ABCDiamond

I am pretty sure that none of them charge, if you open it without involving your original bank.

Not sure about the address bit, any relatives that he can use an address for statements ?

jad n rich

I thought he said he needed a letter from employer and proof of address, like a lease etc, that was info he got from a bank while on hols in UK.

Dont know if the rels address will cut it.

jedly1

well, if i got this right, you've forward bought so will shortly make settlment by wiring hifix ££, they will then be holding a bucket load of AU$$ for you that they want to wire to you - but you have no where for that to go ??

ok, so sell the AU$$ through one of the other brokers, like moneycorp.com with settlement booked on the same day the AU$$ are due to you, you then get hifix to wire them direct to moneycorp au$$ client account and they settle with you in £££.

or just find someone else on here who is going out to sell the au$$ at a middle rate between your buy/sell spreads and what they could get buying now.