[Tia Maria]

Did those going to NZ, keep their UK Current accounts, and if so for how long? Was it because you weren't sure if you'd be coming back, or are there other benefits in keeping the accounts active?

Also were you allowed to do this? In other words do UK banks require you to be resident in order to keep your account open? Also does it matter about tax on interest?

What are those, who are about to go, planning to do? And have you already decided on an NZ bank?

Cheers

[jubjub]

We kept both our Royal Bank and our Nationwide bank accounts, one is the high interest with our "emergency fund" and the others so we can transfer money about to friends and family, we have internet access for both, neither of them batted an eyelid when we changed our address to NZ.

We have also kept a couple of UK credit cards as we have got good credit limits on them, never know when these things could come in handy, only difference with them is that when we changed our address, they wanted a direct debit mandate for the minimum payments as we were overseas.

With our Nationwide a/c we can get access to our fund via the cashpoint over here, with no charges, and get the bank exchange rate each time (not the tourist one).

Before we moved we opened up an ASB account with the migrant banking in London, did not even need to put any money in it to open it. We have only used this facility for the transfer of high amounts when we were buying the house. they charge £15 for each transfer under £30,000. But they are efficient and it was here in five/six banking days. When we arrived, we had sent some funds ahead, and we just went into the branch, and were given eftpos cards within 10 minutes, and off we went! You can do this with other banks too, think people have mentioned National Bank among others.

Not sure on the tax position, guess we will find out at the end of the year when they add the interest on....

[richard]

We kept both our Royal Bank and our Nationwide bank accounts, one is the high interest with our "emergency fund" and the others so we can transfer money about to friends and family, we have internet access for both, neither of them batted an eyelid when we changed our address to NZ.

....

Sal

What happens to your statements now that you have an NZ address? If they are sent direct to NZ does the RBS charge any extra to send them?

I have accounts with RBS and I.F. but at the moment statements are sent to our old address so that they are picked up by the Royal Mail redirection. Now that we have bought a house I want to start getting things sent direct.

Regards

Richard

[Moorf]

We still have 3 Barclays accounts in the UK and they send our statements direct to us here in NZ, they haven't charged us for this.

My UK mortgage co (Alliance & Leicester) also sends me correspondence direct to the UK, as does my pension/savings account co.'s - not one of them has charged us for this.

[jubjub]

No extra charges for air mail statements for any of our accounts. They all arrive in our mail box here quite happilly

[richard]

Thanks for the info. It is nice to get something for free from the bank.