[scotsfamily]

What is the most cost effective bank or way to bring money in to NZ? or is there a thread on this?

[dusk]

I think most people recommend a money trasfer service HiFX for example

depending on how much you want to bring over will make a difference as to how to go about it (ie if you are bring a few thousand over just use the basic service - tranzfers.com is not bad, if you are bringing a lot over you can spread the transfers based on exchange rate etc)

[Charliefarley]

Hi there

We use the Foremost Currency Group, they have been ok. From what I understand they don't charge commission as such but make their money off a couple of decimal places of the exchange rate, so the rate you get won't be quite as good as advertised, this has normally been ok for us as we have always tried to move money at the best time (although obviously this isn't always easy to determine!) I think the minimum amount you can transfer is around 50,000 quid (no pound sign on this key board !)

This may be bog-standard as I have no experience with other money transfer companies, but hope this may be some help to you

[clairelouise]

Before I came I did a transfer from our UK account direct to our NZ one and to be honest wasn't very happy with either the exchange rate or the commision charges. I read about HiFX on here, and opened an account to transfer the rest before I came out and was really really happy with them. I was given a personal 'dealer' (I know it sounds dodgy!!) and they were so helpful over the phone too. No charges and quite a decent exchange rate at the time. HiFX also got the money to the NZ account way quicker than the bank did, and I was told there is no minimum amount needed to transfer.

After I had been here about a week, I received an email saying that I had been automatically passed over to the NZ HiFX office and to update my details with them. I personally can't praise them enough, the NZ branch are just as helpful as the UK and so far so good!

Hope this helps! :D

Clairelouise

[IanW99]

What is the most cost effective bank or way to bring money in to NZ? or is there a thread on this?

Sure that there have been many threads on the subject.

Have you already set up your NZ bank account? Many of the banks actually have overseas branches set up for migrant banking.

For example, ASB have a branch in London and allow you to transfer money to that branch, they will then transfer it for you to your NZ bank account which will be activated for you on arrival.

This is certainly an easy way to transfer money over to NZ, and they offer business rates which are better than you would get from the normal tourist rates. The London account remains open for 2 years so you can keep using it to move monies over.

Ian

[Tomsk]

We used both ASB (having opened an ASB account in London before we left and now, in NZ, using ASB as our regular bank) & HiFx. Of the 2 we actually felt that ASB gave a better service, but I think it's horses for courses really. All the foreign exchange services seem to provide a reasonable service, it's a bit daunting, but you just need to research what you want......well before you need to use it, and there are plenty of options out there.