sm2109

Hi All,
I'm looking to transfer £10,000+ into an Australian bank account prior to my arrival in Adelaide in mid November.
I was wondering if anyone on this forum can advise on when the best time to transfer would be and whom to transfer with?
Thanks,
Suj.

spouse of scouse

Use a reputable foreign exchange broker, I and others here use Forex but there are a couple of others that people here also recommend (can't remember the company names, sorry)

NEVER transfer money through your bank, the exchange rate is woeful compared to a FX company.

As to when - that's crystal ball stuff. Unless you think the British pound is going to rise or fall dramatically against the Australian dollar, any time will do

john in oz

As above others are Moneycorp, Halo and HiFX. Look at the FX rate and chose a time where you get a high rate Interbank rate is about 1 GBP to 2.11 Aud which is historically high in the past few years ie 18 months to 2 years ago it was about 1 = 1.45 aud.

I hope that helps.

skinnygeorge

I just asked Lloyds to transfer it to my Ozzy account the rate they gave me was actually quite competitive. Ask the question with your bank then compare it HiFx and the others

Pulaski

Depends on how much you are sending - the bigger the amount, the better the rate a bank will give you. Banks are generally not competitive until you get to £50k+. £100k+ is better.

Also, if you do decide to use a bank, be sure to ask the sending bank to do the exchange and transfer the proceeds, because one way to be almost certain to get utterly screwed on the exchange rate is to have them transfer pound sterling and have the receiving bank exchange it for A$.

Bear in mind that banks have teams of dealers supported by currency analysts and economists, and even the banks have little success on predicting what the rate will be even three days from now. If the banks could consistently make that prediction they would be able to make a load of money trading FX, and the fact is that banks don't make big bucks trading FX. Some tried it in the 80's and 90's and lost a $4!tload and so many of the banks now just do FX for a customer service and stopped their proprietary trading of currencies.

So, in short look at the rate today, and if you're OK with it do your exchange, it could be a worse rate tomorrow, or it could be better, and honestly to predict the rate tomorrow you might as well flip a coin. Once you have done the deal, move on with your life and don't stress about the extra 0.1% you could have got a day earlier or later, it's just not worth it.

spouse of scouse

Piss off (spam reported)

Australia_bound?

We used Hifx, very easy, would recommend