Australia for 6 months..open bank account?

[Polome]

Hi. Looking for a bit of advice...granddaughter has student placement in Sydney for a six month period....accommodation to be paid d.d so that's ok. My question is should she open a local bank account so she can withdraw cash without the normal overseas charges and if so is it easily done. She does have a paypal account that I can tx money into but assume she would need a local bank account to withdraw from . Anyone had experience of this? Cheers

[Challo]

I did when I lived there for 6months, but I was working and needed to have an account for wages.
Basic account with a cash card with Commonwealth.

[pequod]

Not Australia, but when I visited family in NZ for 6 months I opened a local bank account which was straightforward and simply transferred funds from my UK account as required. As I wanted to buy a car to travel around the country along with hotel accommodation, etc., this seemed to me to be the easiest (and cheapest?) solution.

I imagine the same convenience of having a local card account will apply to your grand-daughter? Check with your UK bank to see which Aus banks they have dealings with.

[h0bbsy]

If it's just for six months wouldn't it be easier to just get a UK bank account that doesn't charge transaction fees. E.g. Nationwide Flexplus (monthly charge) or Revolut, Starling, Monzo (free but some of them have withdrawal limits)

[Condi]

Its not hard to open an Aussie account, so you may as well.

Their interest rates used to be a lot better than ours too.

[Munka01]

Polome said:

Hi. Looking for a bit of advice...granddaughter has student placement in Sydney for a six month period....accommodation to be paid d.d so that's ok. My question is should she open a local bank account so she can withdraw cash without the normal overseas charges and if so is it easily done. She does have a paypal account that I can tx money into but assume she would need a local bank account to withdraw from . Anyone had experience of this? Cheers

If London is local, most of the aussie banks (Westpac, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, ANZ etc) have branches in London where you can pop in and open an account.

I did it for myself at Westpac not far from Fenchurch Street.

[ShyTallKnight]

I've been in Oz for the last 5 months. Never bothered with a local bank account as never used cash just used my UK CC to pay for everything.

[WyrleyD]

pequod said:

Not Australia, but when I visited family in NZ for 6 months I opened a local bank account which was straightforward and simply transferred funds from my UK account as required. As I wanted to buy a car to travel around the country along with hotel accommodation, etc., this seemed to me to be the easiest (and cheapest?) solution.

I imagine the same convenience of having a local card account will apply to your grand-daughter? Check with your UK bank to see which Aus banks they have dealings with.

When was that and what bank was it in NZ? I was there last year for an extended period and the two banks I tried refused to open an account without proof of residence and proof of employment so had to continually use cash machines to draw cash from UK account. Our daughter and son-in-law live there and we visit frequently so having a local bank account would have been handy.

[anonymous-user]

ShyTallKnight said:

I've been in Oz for the last 5 months. Never bothered with a local bank account as never used cash just used my UK CC to pay for everything.

I lived there for three years, for the first 12 months I was getting paid in £ so I just used my UK bank account and withdrew money from ATMs. You will get charged at the daily exchange rate plus charges which I think totalled around £20 a month.

To open a bank account in Australia you need to pass the 100 point check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_point_check it will be very hard to get to 100 points without having something registered in Australia such as a Medicare card. I believe it is easiest to get a bank account with Commonwealth if you want to go this way.

For six months I personally would not bother with an Australian account, just use your UK card for everything.

[pequod]

WyrleyD said:

When was that and what bank was it in NZ? I was there last year for an extended period and the two banks I tried refused to open an account without proof of residence and proof of employment so had to continually use cash machines to draw cash from UK account. Our daughter and son-in-law live there and we visit frequently so having a local bank account would have been handy.

It was 2003/4 and the bank was National Bank of NZ. As of 2012 it became ANZ Bank and maybe they no longer offer this service? I simply used my sisters Auckland address together with my passport and UK bank details to open the account and it was very straightforward but it sounds from your experience that this is no longer so, shame.

[WyrleyD]

Yes, it seems things have changed a lot since then, I think due to money laundering rules etc. I tried ANZ and BNZ and my daughter tried Kiwi Bank (NZ Post Office Bank) it seems it ain't possible anymore unless you actually live and work there and can show a residence permit. We now have a Transferwise Borderless Account whereby you can hold up to 10 currencies simultaneously which more or less gets around the issue as we can just transfer Sterling into NZ $ in that account and then use the associated debit card for cash/transactions and it's just like having a NZ debit card.

[joefraser]

I used commonwealth while i was there for a year... however hsbc were really good, their premier international service was spot on- not sure your grandaughter would qualify for premier but you might and she could always be a joint party .

[Du1point8]

Monzo/revolut.

used them when in Sydney going to Singapore, worked in Sydney too if I forgot my CBA card.