movingaway

Just wondered if anyone had set up a foreign currency account when they first moved over to Oz.

Would we gain by taking our capital over and keeping it in sterling until exchange rates improve or will we lose out using the bank's rates? Is it as simple as that or am I missing something?

Thanks.

carlap

if you mean put it in an Oz bank in a sterling account, then their interest rates are all zero or very poor for foreign curreny (at least all those I have looked at).
Oz banks are giving about 5% at the moment, so compared with 0.5% in uk, you have to balance against the poor exchange rate if converting to Oz $ now.
Or keep your money in uk account and hope/pray for improved exchange rate, then transfer using Ozforex or hifx. It spiked at 2.6 last Oct, so it is a gamble as it might go below 2 (currently at about 2.05), but you have the potential to make big gains (but you might be taxed on the gain - lots of threads about this).

we missed out on the 2.6 for various reasons, but don't want to buy a house just yet (hoping for price falls there - another ingredient in the melting pot), so are leaving in the Uk for now