gregster10217

We went to London yesterday to open our Aus accounts with WestPac. We wanted some advice about transferring our funds over and seemed to get some good advice. Basically we've opened a sterling WestPac account and can transfer directly into it from our UK current account. When the rate we want is available, we ask WestPac to exchange it and transfer it across. We get good rates, as good as ForEx companies, or so we were told, and there's only a $12 fee from WestPac for the transfer.

Has anyone else done this before and found it a good way of transferring money over to Australia? We don't have to use it at all, but it's nice to have, and we can keep it open for as long as we want, meaning we can continue to transfer in the future, not just for this move.
Thanks

Kiwipaul

I opened a sterling account at HSBC in Oz to pay a sterling cheque into because the exchange rate was lousy at the time.
My sterling account and my OZ$ acc were at the same branch and I could transfer money from the sterling acc to my Oz account online whenever I wanted.
And I agree the exchange rate was very good (as good as Ozforex) but I got hit with fees for paying the sterling cheque in and getting it cleared (which took 2 months) but I didn't have any choice as I didn't have any other sterling account anywhere.
I've now converted most of it to $ as the exchange rate is as good as it is likely to get now IMHO.

gregster10217

We were told by the guy who opened our account that the traders on the floors above expect the rate to hit $2 a £ by March. It's 40c more now than when we started this process 6/7 months ago, but it'd be great if it did reach $2/£, for us anyway!

Perpetual Tourist

Just going on your post it sounds like a good arrangement. I will definitely look into this as an option. However I couldn't find any information at http://movingtoaustralia.westpac.co.uk.
You wouldn't happen to have a direct link to its product page?