Feb 14 2009
Opening an Australian Bank Account before Moving to Australia
If you are moving to Australia, it is a good idea to open an Australian bank account before you move. You will then be able to transfer money into this bank account to help pay for the expenses you incur upon arrival in Australia. But how do you choose a suitable bank account?
If you are transferring money from your home country, you do not want to have to pay expensive international transfer fees if you can help it. In the past, I have been shocked at how high these fees can be. The sending bank and the receiving bank both usually impose fees and these are often a percentage of the amount transferred. Added together, the fees for each international transfer can sum up to a substantial amount.
Since we knew that we would be transferring fairly large sums of money to Australia to live on while we were awaiting my husband’s work visa, we wanted to avoid the high transfer fees if at all possible.
I heard about a bank account for expatriates offered by the Commonwealth Bank, whereby you can transfer money from any UK account into a holding account at the Commonwealth Bank in the UK and then have the money transferred to your Australian bank account with the Commonwealth Bank.
The fee for transferring the funds to Australia is just 15 pounds sterling per transaction and it is free to transfer money from any UK account into the holding account. It seemed like the perfect solution for us and so we decided to go for this option.
I will write about our personal experience of this service tomorrow.
