[tee and dee]

I'm sure there are people out there who can help us - we are moving mid Sept and need to arrange a NZ bank account but keep our Uk one open to tie up loose ends here for a couple of months - understand about how it is better to leave money until the rate is favourable and move most of it in one go - but we will need to live for a few months in a rental and have an account for my new (very low) salary. Nationwide's account doesn't look any different to what we have now. Any advice would be gratefully received, :nice1
Tracey

[Cardy]

HI you can open an account with West pac on the internet from england.Dont know if there the best but we knew somebody who worked for them so just did what you are wanting to do ,get a bank account open for your salary and every day stuff here.You just collect your bank card from the nearest branch when you arrive in NZ. Worked fine for us and we moved our money when it went above $3.00 .If i remember correctly we could move $30,000 max at a time and it cost 15 pounds from uk end and similar at this end.So about 30 english per transfer,we were hapy with this and got a good rate and it was easy .Theres probably a better way but this did its job for us.ONE THING TO ASK!! at englsh end is if your bank has a limit on the amount you can move in one go,barclays did but we explained what we were doing and we just had to take our uk passports and nz visas to show them and a few other bits of paperwork they gave us one person to deal with so we werent explaining to different people all the time and they were really good. hope this helps .Also if you keep your uk account open you can keep your uk life insurance policies. !! we have done this as the ones here seemed more expensive and not as good. Hope this helps Cardy

[Bubbles]

So far so good with Westpac for us. All I done was downloaded the application forms from their site, filled them in and faxed them over with photocopies of our visas, passport and recent utility bill. Got an email within 8hrs and the account was open and ready for tranfers 2 days later. :yes

Got the usual questions from Barclays even though I've banked with them for almost 25 yrs about " where did the money come from " , " why are you moving it " etc, etc. I did point out to them that they never asked any questions when I deposited it, so why ask now just because I'm moving some of it. ( I never did get an answer. :laugh )
I wasn't told of any limit on the amounts you want to transfer, in fact at the beginning of July I T/T'ed £50,000 GBP and let them exchange it at their end ( Westpac ) as they were offering a better rate than Barclays. ( Got NZ$3.02 to the £ ) The only charge I seemed to incur was for the cost of the T/T, which was £25.

Cheers
John

[Park City Partner]

Another forum member put me on to the migrant banking group at Westpac. I contacted Jo Sullivan see below and she has been GREAT! We already had accounts but wanted to get a credit card. Neither one of us is working at the moment and when I inquired at a branch about a cc that groaned that it would require an application and a letter of explanation about not working and they were not keen to do it. Jo simply sent us an invitation which we signed and sent back. Easy. She said they have more power than the branches. Give her a call, she will be very helpful...if not now in the future.

Cheers, Amy

Jo Sullivan* | Customer Consultant Migrant Banking* |* Westpac Banking Corporation *|
Level 6 * *79 - 85 Queen Street * * PO Box 53 * * Auckland *1140**** New Zealand |
( Tel: +64 9 302 4288 (Extn 88288) | Ê Fax: +64 9 306 1663 (Extn 88163) |
* Email: jo_sullivan@westpac.co.nz

[Bubbles]

Amy,
I'm pretty sure that our email confirming account details along with other info' was from Jo.
She does seem a very helpful lady. :yes

John

[Cardy]

Yis jo sullivan was our contact too very helpful rang me in england several times to sort things for me :yes

[tee and dee]

Great stuff. Thanks guys and gals ! Tracey

[katandbob]

Westpac, are charging their customers, $5 to count old change!

so thats not much fun if you only have $3 in your piggybank???

or thats what someone who banks with them said this morning at smoko.

We have a National bank account, its free banking if we have $5000 in it, and they are gagging to give us a mortgage....they rang and asked us if we needed one yet...I said, hey up I've only been working 2 weeks, they said oh thats ok you can have one whenever you want :nice1

But THE NATIONWIDE in the uk is a good bank to have your UK money in.

We get the daily exchange rate, and no account charges for using it in NZ.
all we did was tell the bank we would be in NZ for a year or so ;) and they wrote it on the computers so that they wouldnt think it was suspisious that there was a lot of activity abroad.

Also Transfers, is a good site for exchanging money...it cost us £7 for our first transaction, and got a good rate when exchanging it.
Hi there,

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and this sites good for watching the rate
http://www.fxstreet.com/rates-charts/charts-panel/

good luck

Kat

[Babette & Andy]

Hi Tracy

I was the one who put Amy onto Jo Sullivan at Westpac - who has indeed been more than helpful (not used to 'customer service' anymore in the UK). Many times a quick call, e-mail or even text message to her and she was happy to assist.

I've still got my Barclays account in the UK, keeping this open for things like Amazon UK orders, flowers etc ordered for deliver in the UK etc, basically just handy to have.

The proceeds of the sale from our house however we transferred from Barclays using HIFX (www.hifx.co.uk do a search on the forum, as I know we're not the only ones who've used them) who then deposited in our Westpac account(s). They generally tend to get more preferential rates than exchanging with banks direct.

Agree with Kat (hello by the way :) ) that you do get charged by banks here, for 'things' that we were no longer used to being charged for in the UK. With there being so fewer people in NZ it is the one way for the banks to make some money. However, Westpacs migrant account does get rid of many of these charges.

Best of luck with your decision.

Babette

[gotourvisa]

Hi, Hope my experience is of help. I started an account in the UK with Comonwealth bank which is ASB over here. We put some money in and the transfer was free. When we arrived everything was sorted out virtually on the first day. I still wanted to keep an internet deposit account in the UK, but found out through phoning each company you need to stay in the UK for their account to stay open. Also there was limits on how much you could transfer in a day, with some saying £10,000 was there max. If you have a large amount you could imagine the problem if you needed the cash. The only bank which proved OK was the Abbey which has no limit and you can live in NZ, but you have to start the account before you move and then let them no when you have a permanant address in NZ.
When you are in NZ please note you need a secure computer to access your internet bank, the library or a internet cafe are not safe.
Now transfering money is another story!

[tee and dee]

Hi Goutouravisa,
We already bank with the aBBEY in Uk so thought it would be easy to move and still use them - wrong - as you say transferring money isn't that simp[le. They say we can only keep cuurent accounts open for 6 months (went in for appt today) and after that ???? who knows ? The charges for ATM are 2.75% !!! Transfer can be done and is unlimited which I suppose is a plus compared to other places. Advice now needed - do we use Abbey for short term i.e. first 3 months in NZ and until we need our UK money transferring to help buy a house or transfer all straight away to the popular Westpac or even Nationwide who don't charge ??? HELP ! I really an getting my underwear in a twist here !!
Tracey

[zardell]

After a lot of tooing and froing, we finally chose these people.

I had a good talk to them over the phone and they got us sorted out in no time.........good luck.

ASB Bank. Ring Kate Lancaster in London on 020-7710-3592

If you get her message bank do leave a message, because she will ring you back.

Julie

xx

[CAFCValley]

Hi we opened 2 accounts one with Westpac and the other with National. Westpac allow unlimited funds xfred but National have a cap off $250K NZD.
Beware of bank costs if U have less than 100k to invest. Westpac have a migrant section and we dealt with Jo Sullivan from the UK, and were happy with the service.
We left money at Barclays to pay an endowment policy and can access via the internet to pay bills etc. We also left the childrens savings in Nationwide as they are taxed over here, and opened an internet banking account with NW again which can be accesed from NZ and can draw cash at ATM macines in NZ and AUS. Once you are sure of coming and have your visa then apply for an IRD # and inform the bank of this as they charge 39% tax vs the std rate of 19.5% On a seperate issue once over here haggle for everything I always ask if the price is negotiable we got a 2k reduction on our car, $200 of bed
All the best
Larry & Tracey

[tee and dee]

Hi Larry and Tracey,
Lots of info there - I guess IRD relates to Inland Rev but what does it actually stand for and how do i apply ?
Thanks,
Tracey

[zardell]

Yes, you're right. It's the Inland Revenue.

Follow the link below, download, print off and fill in the forms. One for each family member including the children, if you have any.

Send them off to NZ with the supporting documents and you will receive your IRD numbers in the post within a couple of weeks.


Or if you wish, you can apply once you are in NZ, but you will be taxed too much if you cannot give an IRD to your employer (so I'm led to believe) but I will stand corrected on that one.

www.ird.govt.nz/how-to/irdnumbers/

Julie

xx

[CAFCValley]

Hi Tracey
We used the NZ Govt site as per Julie's post, my wife is a Kiwi and her IRD # was still active although she moved to UK 17 years ago. We used HIFX and forward bought $.
Cheers
Larry & Tracey

[tee and dee]

Julie,
"One for each family member including the children, if you have any. " made me smile as we have 4 children ! And before anyone wants to know if we have a television - we actually have several throughout the house !
tracey

[zardell]

Julie,
"One for each family member including the children, if you have any. " made me smile as we have 4 children ! And before anyone wants to know if we have a television - we actually have several throughout the house !
tracey


:laugh :laugh :laugh

Julie

xx