weathej

I wonder if anyone can help? We live in Hungary and are going to live in NZ. We need to transfer settlement funds of NZD100,000. Our problem is that the funds to transfer are in Hungarian forint (HUF) and we can't find a bank that will accept the transfer, either a bank in Hungary to sell us NZD or a bank in NZ to buy HUF. (The HUF is a freely convertible currency.)

An alternative would be to, say, transfer HUF into USD or GBP then transfer that second currency to NZ and buy NZD, but that would cost us margin on currency exchange twice as opposed to once. That would be expensive and a waste of our money!

Does anyone know a bank that will exchange HUF for NZD?

Many thanks - J

Ashley Watson

Hello

Sorry to hear about your plight. Its not easy when one is dealing in currencies not
very well known in the world market.

You have several options as I see it, and alot depends on your personal
circumstances.

1. The easiest (and safest option) is to go to NZ, open a bank account and write a
cheque from your bank account in Hungary for the amount you want to deposit in
HUF and pay it into your account. This way you will only be charged (depending on
the bank) a fee of NZ$5 to NZ$30. However you would need to check if the bank
does a direct convertion from HUF to NZ$. I had a look on a few NZ banks websites
and they did not list the HUF atall. So it is possible that they would make the
conversion via another currency anyway (most probably the Euro).

2. If you are forced to change twice, negociate with the bank to waive fees, and to
give you a better rate. NZ$100K is not to be sniffed at and it pays to shop
arround. Banks in NZ are pretty competitive so dont just take no for an answer.

3. If you have a major credit card from a bank in Hungary, you could pay the money
on your card to put it into credit and withdraw it into an account in NZ. Again
alot depends on your credit card agreement. Often banks do not charge or reduce
fees for withdrawing your own money overseas on your credit card, you would
have to check.

4. If you have to buy two sets of currency, I would suggest you convert from HUF to
Euros or US$. Unfortunatally (from your point of view) the NZ$ has been
appreciating against all major currencies recently.

Good luck

Ashley Watson

Jatt

Or, if you can go to your nearest ANZ branch, you might be able to open you ANZ
account (for NZ) from there.

Good luck "Ashley Watson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Hello
    >
    > Sorry to hear about your plight. Its not easy when one is dealing in currencies not
    > very well known in the world market.
    >
    > You have several options as I see it, and alot depends on your personal
    > circumstances.
    >
    > 1. The easiest (and safest option) is to go to NZ, open a bank account and write a
    > cheque from your bank account in Hungary for the amount you want to deposit in
    > HUF and pay it into your account. This way you will only be charged (depending
    > on the bank) a fee of NZ$5 to NZ$30. However you would need to check if the
    > bank does a direct convertion from HUF to NZ$. I had a look on a few NZ banks
    > websites and they did not list the HUF atall. So it is possible that they would
    > make the conversion via another currency anyway (most probably the Euro).
    >
    > 2. If you are forced to change twice, negociate with the bank to waive fees, and
    > to give you a better rate. NZ$100K is not to be sniffed at and it pays to shop
    > arround. Banks in NZ are pretty competitive so dont just take no for an answer.
    >
    > 3. If you have a major credit card from a bank in Hungary, you could pay the money
    > on your card to put it into credit and withdraw it into an account in NZ. Again
    > alot depends on your credit card agreement. Often banks do not charge or reduce
    > fees for withdrawing your own money overseas on your credit card, you would
    > have to check.
    >
    > 4. If you have to buy two sets of currency, I would suggest you convert from HUF
    > to Euros or US$. Unfortunatally (from your point of view) the NZ$ has been
    > appreciating against all major currencies recently.
    >
    > Good luck
    >
    > Ashley Watson

weathej

Thanks very much Ashley and Jatt. Maybe I will buy Euros first then send those. Do I have to hold my settlement funds in NZD does anyone know? And for how long?

Thanks - J

Pjh

In article <[email protected]>, weathej <[email protected]> wrote:

    > Thanks very much Ashley and Jatt. Maybe I will buy Euros first then send those. Do
    > I have to hold my settlement funds in NZD does anyone know? And for how long?
    >
    > Thanks - J
    >
My understanding is that settlement funds must be held in NZD. However, according to
NZIS documents, it also refers to other assets which can be held (as long as they are
in NZD). I have asked whether stock could be transferred to a NZ trading bank and be
held in a custodial account in NZ dollars ... it appears it can be done and the banks
will handle the transaction and report the holdings in NZ dollars.

Anyone done this before?

PJH