Hazel T

nearing the end of our house sale and hoping to head to brisbane
jan 2005, it may seam a daft question but i will ask it any way
When we have our money from house sale and we exchange it to aus dollars , we will be closing all accounts here in the uk but how will we access our money from oz? will we have to leave a uk bank account open till we sort out account in oz and then leave a member of the family to close that account or can we sort oz account out before we go so that the money will be in our accounts when we get to oz? called in at HSBC toady to see what they said and they were a waist of time, im sure somebody will be able to answer my questions, and everybody whe has emigrated must have come across this situation..

Many Thanks

Hazel

madsad

We opened one online with Westpac, was pretty easy, maybe worth thinking about.

Ushas

The Commonwealth banks and HSBC will allow you to open Oz bank accounts here. That way you can transfer money across more easily. HSBC also offers a great 'online' account and foreign currency accounts. I found some great info about banks from a site someone posted on this forum a few days ago... www.movingdownunder.co.uk

moneypenny20

Do a search. Opening an account in Aus before you go has come up loads of times.

NewJerseyToOz

...such as this one:

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=240795

ABCDiamond

I opened an Australian HSBC account, and kept my UK HSBC account & Credit Card open aswell. I have a fax authority set up to instruct the UK bank if required, and I have internet banking with them aswell.

To open an Australian HSBC account from the UK, you need to use: HSBC International Branch - Tel: 020 7991 7278, or you will not get very far. The High Street branches do not know much about it.

Your options are varied, you could wait till you get here to open an account, and then do the transfer, as long as you keep your UK account open.

A UK credit card can be useful if you have children that may receive money gifts from relatives in the UK. Then it is simple for the relative to pay money into your UK credit card, and for you to then spend that money on whetever gift etc, is chosen.

jensteve

We opened an HSBC account while still in the UK, we also at the same time opened an account in England so there was 2. We transfered some cash before we left so we had some money waiting. We also sorted it with the local UK branch that we could fax instructions over and they would act upon them for us, so we can ask for more cash when we need it. Barclays did not offer this facility!
Take in mind though that I believe you have to transfer it over in a certain time span or will get taxed so I intend transfering the rest of ours as soon as the US elections are out the way.
Hope it helps Jenny

CasG

I'm with HSBC and they wrote me a letter of introduction - supposed to be sending me some paperwork through, which I haven't received yet - and that was over a week ago. I'll phone them tomorrow, and see what they are up to, and get back to you.
Cas

ABCDiamond

Not sure how the A$ v £ is going, but if your money has devalued after the time frame, it can be classed as a loss rather than a gain It's only the "increase" in the value of funds that would actually be taxed.

jensteve

Last time I transfered some over I got $2.58 so I am hoping for it to go up a little.
Jenny

chrisp6

What is the timespan before you get taxed?

Geordie George

We opened an Australian HSBC account recently. Did this through the local Oxford branch - although as mentioned, they have no idea what they're doing!

First of all we got a letter of introduction sent to the Sydney branch from Oxford. The London international office then sent all the paperwork through. We took this along to the Oxford branch and got everything sorted there. Not very easily though. They needed lots of proof, as it's done on a points system (is everything based on points in Aus?!) - so we had to take birth certificates, driving licences etc and the HSBC chap had to sign the copies. Make sure that they copy both sides of anything, otherwise (as we found) Australia make you send the additional info and it delays things.

Main thing to be aware of is that the local branch may try to charge you for exchanging money. Although we were charged £20, we complained and were given a refund (world's local bank - ha!). But the exchange rate was very competitive.

Important thing to note is that Australian banking is quite different to UK banking; there are more charges, even just for using cash machines to make withdrawals with certain accounts. So it's worth actually reading the brochure and seeing which account will suit you best (we choose the internet one).

Hope that helps!
George

Kiwipaul

Strongly recommend you keep at least one account in the UK with a debit card and internet banking. This lets you pay any bills you missed and keeping a current account open dosn't cost anything in the UK.

I've had one in the UK with a pittance in for last 12 years but use it occasionally to pay for things via internet or cheques in the UK and you can also use it to pull money out at Oz ATM and you get an excellent exchange rate.

Once you close account in the UK and become Non resident from the UK it's very difficult to open up another account from abroard.

anya4oz

Totally agree with this - *deffo* keep a UK account open, with a cash float (even a small one) in it if you can, you never know when you might need it, eg if you have to make an emergency visit back to UK at any time. Set up internet banking so you can manage it from Oz, too. Moving money around is such a pain these days that it is worth planning ahead and keeping some flexibility on this.

Be aware that some places & suppliers of services in Oz (eg insurance, building surveys) here will only accept cash or credit cards for payment, and amazingly don't take bank account cards!

For this reason, we each kept one of our UK credit cards (but based at our UK 'care of' address of parents in law). It can be a while before you qualify to get credit cards in Aus. These need sparing use, because of the exchange rate & usage fee on some cards, so we've kept them for emergencies. If you do this, you can arrange with most UK ccs to do the payments on the itnernet - just keep a little extra cash in the UK account foir the purpose.

Cheers,
Anya.

Wol

Agree with all the above. Oz banks are back in the dark ages so far as charges are concerned! Be prepared to pay for scratching your nose with most.

Many of us have found that an ING direct savings account (pays 5,25%) is a good place to park money, and that HSBC Online Savings (internet) account is a good day-to-day account (pays 5% if you keep over $2000 in it). You need rarely pay charges this way. Many other banks allow you to manage the accounts without too many charges but sometimes the conditions can be difficult to keep to!

Definitely keep some UK presence as long as you can. You will be able to use your UK credit cards to keep you going until you have an Oz credit history. (Oz credit cards have laughably low limits, especially when you arrive and have to buy all sorts of things!) It's then easy to pay the credit card off in the UK online from your account.

I'm not sure about the transferring of the ££ over here after a delay. There IS legislation here (FOREX) which allows taxation of a "capital gain" caused by exchange rate fluctuation even when the amount in ££ has not changed but this can be prevented by holding a statement in the approved form saying that you elect any gain or loss to be ignored. I believe the limit on this is $250k. Do a search on the ATO website under FOREX. I think that absolves you from having to transfer within a time scale - but I am anything but an expert so ask around!

EFTPOS is used a lot here. I never used it in the UK because I like to keep track of the account and that's difficult using a card. What we do now is use the HSBC credit card all the time and when we run up towards the $1000 limit just transfer some cash into it online. Helps build a credit history too.

It seems to work well - just different, that's all!