nya

Good morning,

We are going to move to Adelaide early next year but I can't seem to find an answers to a fairly urgent problem: I work as a freelancer, mainly with European clients, and I will keep my UK bank account going, as clients will prefer to pay me into a European account (no charges). Now the trouble is that I need to get all my money (income) from my UK account into my Australian account on at least a weekly basis.

No UK bank seems to have an online banknig facility where you can make international translations to Oz, and when I asked in my branch they said I would have to come into my UK branch in person for each transfer, which for obviuos reasons is impossible. So my dilemma is: I need to access my UK ban kaccount from Oz weekly and transfer money from it to my Australian account on a weekly basis (if the charges are very high then monthly).

Can anyone recommend a solution, or are there any bank accounts out there where you can have a Sterling and AUD account and acces them both from Oz, preferably online without having to go into a branch each time?

Many thanks in advance for any help!

tomgreen

When I had this problem, I used PayPal to transfer money between accounts. It'll incur less cahrges than BACS transfers and doesn't require you to visit the banks in person.


Tom

cookiestar

I have an HSBC UK and Aus account. They are linked through online banking and I can move money fee-free (at quite a good rate - got 2.077 last week) online no hassle.

moneypenny20

We have a First Direct account and have no problem transferring money from there to our Commonwealth account here, a simple, short phonecall has always got us a really good rate (better than the big FX boys for large amounts) and the money transferred quickly.

Tubbs2Oz

That HSBC deal sounds quite good. I need to sort out bank accounts too.

Alfresco

Would this be the HSBC Premier account as described on their website or can it be a normal HSBC account?

pab1974

I have been looking into this also as we are moving over shortly.

I believe that for amounts under £10k you can use your debit card and exchange with one of the FX companies ands they will then pay it into an account that you desire.

cookiestar

Mine is the Premier, not sure about the regular account.

Alfresco

You need to be mega loaded by the looks of it.

Alfresco

The Premier acc's qualifying critea look quite steep (to me) just to be able to transfer money between two countries easily, or is this not the case?

cookiestar

If they can do it on the Premier account, I'm sure they can do it on the regular account too. I've also transferred money from my UK RBS account online to the Aus HSBC account. I though doing online transfers via online banking was a fairly standard thing? If you do it yourself online I don't think they charge unlike if you go into a branch and do it (RBS charge £20 per transfer in branch)

Otherwise Paypal is cheap to transfer with.

pab1974

Does the HSBC have a large presence in Australia?

cookiestar

I'm in the UK (for the next 6.5 weeks anyway). They have a branch in Brisbane and other major cities, plus you can use other bank ATMs (Westpac, St Georges and BankSA) Have a look here for HSBC ATMS: http://www.hsbc.com.au/1/2/misc/locations/atm

charlie5

Thanks for this. We have a First Direct account and this could be quite useful.

Charlie

Pollyana

I use www.tranzfers.com - move cash from my account here to my account there, costs £7/$15 a go. Very qucick and easy, and all online.