Emigrating and transferring monies

Ozrafman

Help! I'm emigrating to Australia and will need to have a relatively large sum of money sent out to abank over there. What is the best way of doing this. A
Also we are trying to sell our house and may not have done so by the time we leave.Is there any way of guaranteeing an exchange rate so that we don't lose out if the rate goes down by the time we sell only I got serioulsy stung ion 1992 when I had money transferred on Black Monday?
Any bits of advice/pointers would be great.

DiggingOut

Talk to a currency broker about the whole thing. I've used HIFX, there are others as well.

Your bank will exchange your funds for you, but take maybe 3%. This will be a hidden fee, in that it is built into the exchange rate they offer you, rather than an actual fee. For instance, the exchange rate today is about 2.42, which means you get 2.42 AUD for every GBP. Now, your bank would hit that by about 3% and only give you 2.35 AUD for every GBP -- not very nice if you are moving a lot of money. This is often called the "load"

They may also charge you a commission of 0.25-0.5%, which is simply a ripoff, since they are already making loads on the load . A currency broker will usually not charge a commission, and their load will typically be between 0.5-1.0%, so you would get maybe 2.18 AUD for every GBP, which is much nicer.

I suspect they would arrange some kind of hedge for you on the rate as well, maybe by agreeing some kind of currency futures contract. The problem might be of not knowing the exact date or amount that you will have to transfer, but they may be able to do something for you.

I would not personally be in a hurry to lock in current exchange rates. The Australian dollar is pretty strong right now. The last time it was significantly stronger was in 1997. It would be a lot nicer if you could get 2.70 for your pound, for instance, and it was there just last summer.

Ozrafman

Thanks so much for that and speedy too! Seems like sensible advice to me. I have heard of currency brokers before but could not recall what they wee actually called to look them up. Thanks again.

laratigger

Digging out, you mentioned other FX dealers. Which one's can you recommend? I've seen several on the net, but I don't know what to watch out for in picking one. How can you tell they're legit? Thanks :-)

DiggingOut

I can only recommend the one I've used (HIFX). But see this thread for lots of discussion.

k_sta

I am an Aussie over here and recommend these guys:

https://www.tranzfers.com

They are an exchange trading company (registered and regulated both in UK and OZ) They give commercial rates and charge a very low fee. Its easy to do - all you need to do is have opened your bank account in oz first.

Only citibank has a better rate (only sometimes by .1% max). When I compared them you needed a single transfer of over £8000 and a customer both here and in oz of citibank.

Good thing about this though is you can do it piecemeal for only a little bit more.

And one warning - choose your bank account in Australia carefully. They all charge fees! and they all do it in varing manners.

G'luck

DiggingOut

Just compared their GBP/AUD rate, and it was about 1.25% off of interbank rate -- competitive, but HIFX usually gives me 0.75-1.0% off of interbank, slightly better. HIFX charges no fee, they charge a very low fee (small enough to be negligible if you are doing large amounts).

HIFX has a £5K minimum, so if they allow smaller amounts, the extra flexibility may be worth something.

In general, they seem to be very competitive, but not necessarily the very best.

With HIFX, you would also need an account in oz first. No difference between the two there.