Receiving Pension from South Africa

oldoak66

My dad received a pension from Employers in South Africa which was paid into a Bank account he had in South Africa. My dad has died and the pension entitlement has passed to my mother. Unfortunately the account in South Africa was in dad’s name and had to be closed on his death.
The pension payment is now made into my brother’s account in South Africa but we are struggling to find the best way and permanent way to get the money transferred from South Africa to the UK. My mother’s bank said that it has to be handled from South Africa. South Africa says that my mum has to open an account in South Africa but at 80 she has no intention of travelling back there just to do that. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how we can do this? The pension fund will not (they state it is their policy) transfer the funds directly to my mother’s Bank account here in the UK.
Look forward to hearing any suggestions. Thanks

blackanchorage

My sister was able to open an account in South Africa for me, just with my South African ID book. I can't remember the name of the bank (I think it was a Greek bank) but I can ask my sister if you need.

Regards

oldoak66

Thanks for your response - I would appreciate the name of the Bank if you don't mind.

Thanks very much.;)

blackanchorage

I just found the details - The South African Bank Of Athens

Regards

oldoak66

Thanks very much for the info - will ask my brother to give it a try.

Kind regards

EdInvestor

There are many foreign banks with branches in SA, it might be worth checking Barclays and Standard Chartered as well.

blackanchorage

It's not whether it's foreign or not - it's whether you can open an account there if you're not in the country. For some reason, when I wanted to do this, my sister or brother-in-law suggested this bank specifically. And it worked for me, I have an account with them now, opened in the last year.

Regards

Jennifer_Jane

Actually, I wonder if just opening a bank account is going to be sufficient?

My own experience of getting my own pension sent from South Africa to the UK has been that a) that the Banks haven't been that helpful; b) I needed to go to the South African Revenue Services offices to beg and plead for a tax clearance. Now that I have that, my South African bank is under non-Resident status (more meetings and forms) and the whole process is easy (I just send an e-mail to the bank asking them to send over the money). I still do have a South African tax number, however, and liability for tax if I go over the limits (I have these if you need them).

I hope you don't have this experience - surely there is some process for beneficiaries of pensions (sorry for the terminology, it is accurate, but insensitive).

You might try e-mailing nonres@fnb.co.za (First National Bank of South Africa - used to be Barclays a long time ago), to ask them about it.

I hope you don't have the problems I had, I don't know what would happen to this if I died - the Bank did say my beneficiary wouldn't have a problem - but I don't believe them!

Good luck - will you let us know how you get on?

Regards
Jen
x