irishmolly

What do you do when you arrive with no bank account and you need to pay for things ?

I'm sure it will be easy enough to set up the migrant account with Comm Bank of Aust but is it activated straight away on arrival in Australia ? Does anyone take cash or travellers cheques ?

evila

I´m taking US$1100 with me in cash, and have opened an account with westpac which should be activated the very same day I enter the branch and sign the forms...

Any other view?

Nibbs

We used our UK atm and credit cards until we got the bank account sorted. Can I suggest you look at HSBC before you set up an account with the Commonwealth. Advantage is no charges but there are few branches. That hasn't caused us a problem since we get most of our cash with the weekly shop.

cliff and kay

Hi, despite the not so good press that Comm bank gets, we opened up an account in the London branch and they gave us a Melbourne branch address + account number. They informed us that if we transfer some funds into the London account here, they can then convert to A$ and on production of passport at the Aus branch, you can draw on the money straight away.

It really has been no hassle whatsoever.

as a back up, we are taking Australian travellers cheques . just in case.

good luck

Cliff and Kay

S Oldfield

Hi,

We are in the process of opening an online Australian HSBC account
takes 5 minutes

HiddenPaw

Like Cliff & Kay, we opened a COmm Bank a/c with the London branch and transferred money into it before we left. From the UK we made an appt to see the Comm Bank Migrant Banker on the first day we arrived in Adelaide. Our EFTPOS cards were there to collect on arrival so we had instant access to $$ from day 1. During that first meeting in Adelaide, Comm Bank also organised Mastercards for us...didn't even need to fill in an app form...and this with no Oz credit history either. Really simple and efficient.

Good luck

mike7

This has also been a concern of ours.

We arrive in Sydney on the 18th April 2004.

However, being in Scotland, we have a bank account with the Clydesdale Bank for twenty years how now happen to be owned by the Bank of Australia. This has allowed us to open an Australian bank account in the UK and allow monies to be transfered which should be instantly available to us on arrival.

We are still waiting for some clarification on the transfer of our 'credit' rating or the ability to gain credit cards.

Has anyone else done this ?.

sky

dont know about oz but we have been offered credit where ever we have shopped no probs in NZ and credit cards not that we have taken up the offer buy it seems worryingly easy to aquire

HiddenPaw

Australia has one of the highest (if not THE highest) levels of personal debt in the western world.....credit and finance is pretty easy to come by in other words. Obviously, higher risk borrowers attract higher interest rates...you just have to shop around and be wary of what rates you're paying.

Nibbs

I've knocked Commonwealth before only 'bos of the charges but one thing they do well is Migrant. My brother is still in touch with his migrant advisor 3 years later!

ScuntoBris

Agreed...


Make sure you ask about your daily allowance on your EFTPOS (switch card), ours was set at $800 but this was not explained and did cause an awkward moment.

Called Comm Bank later and got the limit lifted.

ABCDiamond

Did you get the limit raised to more than $1,000, as it seems a consensus that $1,000 is the Australian maximum on Debit Cards here.

ScuntoBris

Got $2,000, raised over the phone, but they gave the usual lecture about raising our liability if the cards were lost or stolen and somebody had our pin.

With everything we had to buy would have struggled with only $1000.

tinaj

If you get the Eptfos cards sent to you in England make sure you get the PIN numbers sent as well. We ended up having to wait 3 weeks with no access to our money in the bank whilst we waited for PINs. You have to enter a pIN to buy anything out here.

We used our UK visas for about 4 weeks after we arrived. We left some money in our UK accounts and paid them online.