Tim & Jan

Hello All,

We have just got a four year work visa and arrived in Sydney 48 hours ago. I'm working for a UK company setting up a office in Sydney to service APAC.
All good so far and we're really looking forward to seeing Asia and ANZ and living the Aussie life.

My question is: my UK company gave me a choice, take the money in Sterling or AUS$ and stick to it for 2 years. I took Sterling and it's going into my UK account just as before as we still have a house in London which we are renting out and needed to pay the mortgage, also I thought the pound might gain against the dollar (Big guess, fingers crossed). Now I'm looking around at the best way to transfer around $3000 every month into a Aussie account to pay rent for a place in Syndey and living costs: Food, clothes etc.. I'm waiting for UK banks (RBS, HSBC) to give me some costs of international transfers and have enquired with HSBC here. Anyone found a cheap way of transfering small amounts of money of a regular basis, Ie. every month.

Tim,

PS. stumbled on a UK shop is Sydney selling Bacon Walkers crisps already so my main concern about aussie living is gone. All I need now is a bottleshop selling Wadworths 6X and I'm in heaven.

Pollyana

Can do you a bottle shop in Brisbane selling very similar stuff, and it may even have Wadworths, I'm not certain! Bit of a hike from Sydney though.

I move money each month from here to the UK, I use www.tranzfers.com
Costs £7/$15 per transfer, regardless of amount, takes about 3-4 days to do.
Give them a go, general opinion seems to be that they are cheaper than the banks.

biggy

I have used tranzfers on several occassions they r superb

Tim & Jan

Thank you for your advice. It's helped us heaps!

J & T

clandfam

why does it cost money to transfer from uk to oz? surely if you open an oz bank account and have the money paid directly to that it doesn't cost.

OzTennis

He's opted to be paid in £'s to a UK account so free transfers will only apply if the said UK bank has branches in Australia; otherwise you will have to pay for a transfer from one UK bank (without Oz branches) to another UK bank (with Oz branches). One answer seems to be to have your £'s paid into the Commonwealth, HSBC et al if you want free transfers. £7 per month might be neither here nor there if someone wants peace of mind. www.hifx.co.uk do regular transfer as well (I think they're the same 'mob' as tranzfers). I've used them and they're excellent too. Some will transfer for 'free', they make their money through the exchange rate they offer you!

OzTennis