move money overseas

ovayonda

I am planning to move to Australia in about 6 months but since the exchange rate is so favourable at the moment am considering moving my savings now. Can anyone advise the best way to do this???

DiggingOut

You need to get an Aussie dollar account open. Citibank may have one that is UK based, which would be easiest, or one of the major UK banks may have one as well. If not, then you need to contact an Aussie bank and ask them how you open an account with them before you move there.

Once you have the account, use a currency broker to exchange your money into Australian dollars, they will give you the best rate and put the money directly into your Aussie dollar account.

There is a thread on "exchange rates" on the money & current accounts board that is helpful.

velvettom

Ok, this may not sound easy, but it is! I've only done it once so far - but this is due to my present cash flow, not because it doesn't work.

Those familiar with Ebay should be aware of PayPal - an online payment method that registered users can pay/transfer funds to anyone with an email address.

Now I'm lucky, I have an Australian and a UK bank account so half my problem is solved. So, I registered my Australian bank account on PayPal with a username and an email address and then registered my UK bank account with a different username and a different email address. After a bit of tweaking and confirming details, I was able to transfer money from my UK account to my account in Australia at a click of a mouse button and a fee of approx £3. The whole process took 5-7 working days.

Make sure you read all the details closely and confirm all the points that need validating and MAKE SURE you don't log into both accounts at the same time - I have heard ugly stories of accounts being cancelled due to this.

jordylass

I'm not sure how it works with Aus, but thought you could only have 2 accounts with Paypal, 1 business and 1 personal! I think you could be seriously investigated for money laundering doing it the way you suggest velvettom.

I have 1 account, but both my UK bank and my US bank details are on this one account, I can just decide which account i want to download money from. I'm sure they recently made it that you could only do this with a US and one other account though.

The other great place to use for transferring money at much better rates than the bank is https://www.xe.com

I signed up for this but so far haven't had any money to shift, but other's rave about it.