CORKER

How does this sound for a plan...open an account in London with the Commonwealth bank, deposit the proceeds of our house sale in the account. Move to Aus. open a commonwealth account there and then transfer the money into the Aus. bank..?????...

Does this make any sense.......

kevinl

Try www.migrantbanking.co.uk/

when you set up your account here they also set up your account in OZ ready to transfer the money into, certainly the easiest option IMO.

Kevin

Jonahs_mummy

that is our plan too......... in fact that is EXACTLY our plan! LOL

Fardell

Only two "wrinkles":

1) The Commonwealth is generally regarded as a cr*ppy bank in terms of service - although you can change accounts once you get here. Have a look at www.bankchoice.com.au to select the best sort of account for your circumstances. Note that you can establish an account with Westpac before leaving the UK - a better bank all round (my opinion of course) - at:

http://www.westpac.com.au/internet/p...igrant+banking

2) Check the exchange rate - there is mention of "migrant" rates but see what HiFX (www.hifx.co.uk) and Ozforex (www.tranzsfers.com) can do for you. The cost of going with a pure "bank" can be very substantial.

JAJ

A few years ago many people were using Exchange Direct plc to move funds from house sales etc. Better rates than the banks etc. In December 2001 Exchange Direct went bust suddenly and lots of money disappeared in transit. I don't know if/when people got any of it back, but that particular fiasco demonstrated there was little or no external support or consumer protection available at the time.

Things may have changed since, but I would ask some hard questions. It's one thing to use an FX broker to move small sums regularly when the savings add up and the risk is smaller, but if you are looking to transfer a large sum then sticking with licenced banks at both ends is the safest option.

Jeremy

Jonahs_mummy

I agree Jeremy - the thought of a money transfer company holding ALL my miney is scary to say the least - I will be sticking with the banks!

Fardell

The concerns are very understandable although Exchange Direct was actually a very small firm by todays standards and regulation has improved considerably - Ozforex for example is regulated by ASIC in Australia and has an AFS license which strictly controls activity/behaviour and capital requirements. At least use them to benchmark the exchange rate the bank is offering you, there is a very significant difference between the rates given to retail customers and companies and the banks make very substantial profits.

boom_meringue

commonwealth are the most awful bank I have ever made the mistake of dealing with - we have now opened an account with Westpac but several others are pretty good.

Check the rates and fees very carefully, not everything with the Commonwealth is up front

Jonahs_mummy

really? can give details?

kevinl

A couple of times I have done a spot check on rates by ringing round one after the next asking for best rate for this amount now.
I didn't find the differance large enough, I am moving quite a bit, to warrant not going with the Commonwealth.
We get 3% interest here with the Commonwealth which isn't great but trying to transfer money from a uk savings account to buy when you are abroad looked a pain.IMO

When we get to OZ we will look at Banks again.

Kevin

SuperSeagulls

Check out TRANZFERS.

SS

boom_meringue

The fees for our Commonwealth account came out to be about $30 for the first month of usage as they charge you for just about everything, we also found that we could only transfer a maximum of $2000 out of the account each day. I ended up having to schedule transfers every day for a week as we had transfered £9,000 in from our UK transfer account. To add insult to injury it ended up taking a total of over two weeks to get the money through into our Australian Commonwealth account before we could start transfering it into the Westpac.

wengerboy

that`s what i did mate!! easy peasy no complaints

Jonahs_mummy

Thats really bad - I mean $2K per day os pretty bad if you are going out setting up your new homes, etc
We will be looking at Westpac too. Anybody got info (good or bad) about them?

CORKER

Did you transfer all your money in one go or did you have to move $2000 a day???