[starkhorn]

Folks,

I'm trying to sort out a bit of NZD cash so that we'll have some when we immediately land.

However in France, NZD dollars is quite rare so I'm not getting very good rates. The best so far was 1 euro -> 1.82 NZD when I know that 1 euro is equal to around 1.92 NZD.

So I was wondering do you get better exchange rates in New Zealand when converying Euros or Sterling to NZD? Or do you reckon I should sort that before arriving?

Many thanks in advance.

Cheers
Starkhorn

[dawn]

I haven't tried converting cash out here, but I can gurantee you that you will get a better exchange rate at Tranzfers (http://www.tranzfers.com/refer.asp?r=mrs_kiwi)

[Oregonkiwi]

If you want to have NZD in your pocket when you arrive, the BNZ (Bank of New Zealand) has 2 booths in the arrivals area at Auckland Airport where you can exchange currency. You could maybe look up their website and see what their exchange rate for euros is.

[SharpBlade]

Starkhorn,

We moved from Ireland (Euro zone) to Christchurch nearly one year ago. We bought as few dollars as possible from our own bank in Ireland just to get us going for the first day. For the rest we relied on our Irish credit card.
We were able to get access to the money we transferred from Europe to NZ nearly as soon as we landed in NZ:
-We opened a bank account at the National Bank of New Zealand (http://www.nationalbank.co.nz) from Ireland.
-We transferred money from Europe to that account using HIFX (http://www.hifx.co.uk).
-We called in to our National Bank of New Zealand (http://www.nationalbank.co.nz) branch on our 2nd day in NZ to collect our EFTPOS card.

By the way... I am actually Belgian, French is my first language.