British Expats - what bank,or account,credit cards etc

Quote:

Originally Posted by brian.w (Post 5537835)

what bank is more located around oz and also atm machines of the bank?
what account is good to have with that bank?
Who charges the most fees and the least fees per month and also per atm machine used etc.
Who offers best services,and also has best online banking.

Any good ones that dont charge fees and if so name them.

And with these banks who offers the best credit cards yes before getting them i suppose you need to be settled in oz and have a job etc,but anyway who are the best for that.

HSBC are fee free, and if you're moving to Sydney then I don't see why you would want to bank with anybody else. In other cities, the availability of ATMs is claimed to be an issue, but with the ability to withdraw money fee free across the counter at the post office and via EFTPOS in just about any supermarket/Macdonalds, I have never found it an issue.

You received unlimited free HSBC ATM, EFTPOS and BPAY transactions, and also receive 5 free ATM transactions at competitors ATMs before they charge a fee of $2 for each alien ATM transaction.

The other good bank is Citibank, who do charge a monthly fee of $5, but that gives you unlimited free transactions at any ATM in the country. I keep thinking about switching to this from HSBC, but as I have managed to never exceed my 5 free alien transactions in well over 18 months, I don't see much point.

Both HSBC and Citibank pay a reasonable rate of interest on their current accounts, and have can have high interest accounts linked - The HSBC serious saver is pretty good if you have money laying around.

As for the local banks, they charge for pretty much everything, with the Commonwealth being about the worst of the bunch. Bankwest are a reasonably new player in the banking market, and are offering fee free transaction accounts. They also offer about the best savings rate - currently about 7.5% for the introductory year I think.

My advice would be to start a fee free account with HSBC and see if it meets your needs. If not, then change to something that does. That way you haven't lost out on fees to discover it wasn't quite what you wanted.

S