nat1710

Hi there, hope someone could give me a bit of advice.
I need to transfer money from the UK to Australia (about $60k). I am unsure how to go about this. Will I have to pay taxes on this money? Will I only lose money on the exchange rate? I keep getting told different things. Thanks.

old.sparkles

Hi nat and welcome to BE

Probably the easiest way of transferring the money is to use a forex company. Whether or not you have to pay tax I guess depends on where you are tax resident, and how you came by the money. You could ask for advice in our Australian section - http://britishexpats.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=54

and there is also a forex vendor on the forum - http://britishexpats.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=199 although I haven't used them

I sold my house in the UK prior to our move, and transferred the proceeds using ukforex at a good rate, and no tax liability

nat1710

Thank you old.sparkles for the response! The money is basically savings from employment etc in the UK, so all legit I will look up the links you provided. Thanks again

bakedbean

Hi Nat and welcome to the forum

Ian_Daly

Hi Nat,

I hope you are keeping well?

My name is Ian and I'm one of the vendors on British Expats that specialises in currency exchange, if you haven't already taken a look at our section then please take a look at the link below. I recently wrote a piece on the importance of using a currency company which I think you will find very useful.

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=813686

In answer to your questions, I can easily explain the whole process to you from beginning to end and you will also not have to pay any taxes using any currency company.

Then with regards to losing money on the exchange rate, typically a high street bank would take anything from 2 - 4% on the exchange rate. If you look online today for the GBP - AUD exchange rate you will more then likely see a rate of about £1.00 = $1.6840. The bank would offer you a rate of about $1.63 so that means it would cost you £36,809.82 to buy $60,000 AUD, plus any transfers fees which range from £10 - £35 depending on the bank.

If you were to use a currency specialist company like mine then your rate would be at least $1.6750 so that means it would cost you only £35,820.90 to buy $60,000 AUD which saves you £988.92 and most currency companies don't have any transfer fees.

You mention that you are being told different things about what to do, if you let me and the other British Expats members know what they are, we should be able to help explain them.

All the best

Ian
...

BEVS

I am moving this thread to the Australian forum nat1710 to better gain a wider bredth of experiences and opinions there.

The Welcome Inn is really just for welcomes , so not many that moved from the UK to Oz pass on by.

Kiwipaul

I strongly recommend OzForex.

http://www.ozforex.com.au/currency-converter

It is an online DIY system that dosn't charge any commission and gives a better then a bank exchange rate.

You can even set it up to transfer the money when it hits a specified exhange rate.

dave99

I recommend moneycorp I have used them about 4 times in all my ping ponging and never had any problems.

Hino

I'm another fan of Ozforex, I usually use them for Oz - UK transactions but yesterday I did a UK - Oz transfer and found them as professional as always.

I used the XE.com site to get the mid market rate for the exchange and the transfer only cost $60 on a small (GBP 3000) transfer.

That's about 1.3% of the funds transferred, much cheaper than the banks and very good value for money. I found the initial account setup a little long winded, but I guess that security is paramount in their business.

Once you have your account in place the rest is easy. If you should have any problems, then their phone support is great. Through to an consultant right away and ( in my experience ), a quick resolution to any problem.

OzTennis

OzForex/UKForex - used them for £'s to $'s and $'s to £'s, very good rate, very efficient service.

If you are looking for advice, setting up Australian accounts whilst in the UK etc you could try the likes of Commonwealth Bank in London:

https://www.commbankuk.co.uk/australian_bank_account/

Once you are a client with them you get a better exchange rate for transfers than you would get just contacting a bank for a 'one-off'. I've used them in the past as well and can recommend them too.

scrudu

I registered with OzForex and HiFx a good period of time before I was ready to transfer and then watched the rates on both. Don't bother looking at the "indicative" rates given on any of the Forex homepages (i.e. when you're not logged in), as you won't get these rates, as they are only for bank to bank conversions. Once you log in as a registered user you can do a quote to find out how much you will receive for your GBP in AUD once converted.

For me, HiFx won out each time I checked as I got a few hundred AUD extra exchanging with them than OzForex. The transfer went amazingly smoothly. Locked in the quote once the exchange rate was acceptable, and once my EUR hit the HiFx account, I received the money the following business day in my AU account. In total a 3 business day turnaround for a great exchange rate. Couldn't recommend them highly enough.

Dan_W9

Hi Nat,

Do you currently live in Oz or are you paying a friend/family member over there?

For the transfer your best bet is to use a specialist currency company as there will be No Fees incurred, the payment will take about 2 days and you will receive a much better Exchange rate compared to any Bank.

Feel free to contact me and I will let you know what I can offer you!

Thanks, Dan

OzTennis

Yes, have used HIFX 5 or 6 times and they were excellent - didn't find an appreciable difference between them and Oz/UKForex on service or rate to be honest so it's really 6 of one and half dozen of the other. What I would say is go for a larger FX dealer for the better rate and compare one with the other. With experience you get to know what the average punter's rate will be compared to the interbank rate you can get such as this one plus above mentioned 2:

http://www.exchangerates.org.uk/fore...rex-rates.html

My ball park figure would be roughly a cent or so eg showing $1.69 now so reckon on $1.70.something.

Off thread but $1.70 is looking like a settled rate for last month or two - it was slightly above but it's been between $1.67 and $1.69 market rate for a month or so. Whither the $2 some were predicting as though this is some sort of 'par'?