[Belmont Babes]

Another probably daft question:

Can you pay sterling cheques into NZ banks?

Also I am completely bemused by the transferal of £ to $. Do you have to go through an agency? I have joined XE. Can you just transfer from UK bank to NZ bank?

[talisker]

Another probably daft question:

Can you pay sterling cheques into NZ banks?

Also I am completely bemused by the transferal of £ to $. Do you have to go through an agency? I have joined XE. Can you just transfer from UK bank to NZ bank?

I believe you probably can pay sterling cheques in to a NZ bank (i've certainly done it the other way round), but there will probably be a charge for the currency conversion and it may take a while to come through.

As to the transfer thing, you can just do it bank to bank, but using an agency will probably give you a better rate, and you have more control - i.e. you get a quote for the current rate, and if you agree, that's the rate you get. With a bank, you request a transfer and you have no control over what the rate will be at whatever point in the next few days they do the deal.

Also, in my experience UK banks vary wildly in how clued up they are about transferring money overseas, especially if you're not there in person when you request it. Some don't seem to be able to grasp the concept that you can't just pop into your local UK branch and fill in a form. If you use an agency, the only transfer you need to make from your UK branch is to the agency's account in the UK, which should be nice and easy for them.

[zardell]

I personally recommend ASB Bank in London.

Open an account with them and they will open an ASB account for you in NZ and you can transfer funds at your leisure.

When we left for NZ, we still had some monies owing to us, so these were paid to our solicitor who in turn just put the money into our London account.

They also use mid-live rates which is a far better rate than the tourist rate. They charge £15 for transfers below £30,000 and although they advertise as not charging for transfers above that amount what actually happens is that you get a rate approximately one cent below mid rate. IE if the exchange rate is $2.70 to the £, you would get $2.69 to the £.

Do a search on this forum for previous posts or Google ASB Migrant Banking, London.

Julie

xx

[shakyle2906]

Another probably daft question:

Can you pay sterling cheques into NZ banks?

Also I am completely bemused by the transferal of £ to $. Do you have to go through an agency? I have joined XE. Can you just transfer from UK bank to NZ bank?


Hi Natalie

I have paid a UK cheque into our NZ bank account, my step dad sent little one a cheque for christmas, he doesnt do online banking!! I was told to allows 3-4wks for it to clear! Cant recall how long it did take though, forgot to check.

I have also transferred money from the Uk to NZ when we first came over, it cost me something like £35 from UK bank account and then a further charge over here of something like £20 or so.

I tend to just use my UK cashpoint card now, its easier and cheaper, just $1.50 to take any amount out. I have lefy my UK account open indefinetly. They know i live over here, and i have online statements. I find it easier for families popping cash in for special occasions, as well as us too. My real dad also just treated me to new oven and hob, which was nice surprise, he just went along to the Halifax and paid the cash in as he was going to get charged from bank to bank!!

HTH a little

Sharon
xx

[IanW99]

Another probably daft question:

Can you pay sterling cheques into NZ banks?

Also I am completely bemused by the transferal of £ to $. Do you have to go through an agency? I have joined XE. Can you just transfer from UK bank to NZ bank?

My answer is pretty much as others have already said.

Yes you can pay sterling cheques into NZ banks, when we did it we got the current exchange rate but had to wait for it to clear.

Going through something like ASB in London is simple to do and works well but you still have a bit of a wait for funds it can take upto 4 days to transfer from your UK bank to ASB in London and then it takes upto another 4 days to transfer from London to NZ. You do get a decent exchange rate with this approach so can recommend it. You can also specify a forward rate here so that they will wait to transfer until you get the rate that you want.

Transferring with XE would likely give a better rate and you can see what rate you are going to get but you have to transfer at the right time of day to get the best rate as it fluctuates continuously. Or you could set the rate that you want and hope that it achieves this.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the amount you can transfer. If you are going to do this online then most banks limit the amount of a single transfer e.g. to £10,000 so if you want to transfer more you either need to set up a transaction with them or transfer in steps paying a transaction fee each time.

Another option if you want to keep a bank account in the UK is to check out Nationwide as they appear to offer a good way to exchange money e.g. just with a cashpoint card in NZ without lots of extra fees.

Ian

[Smiler]

ASB have just taken 1 month and 3 days to clear a € cheque for us. :confused: We usually receive all our business payments via bank transfer, but an Irish customer sent us a cheque instead.

We were charged to pay in the darn thing as we have a business online account, lost out in the conversion and a $12 fee to boot. :laugh

Can't recommend Nationwide enough personally. All 'foreign' CC/ATM transactions free. It's cheaper for me to pay the $20 and transfer a chunk to Nationwide and use that when I'm abroad, than use my NZ CC's.