Children's bank accounts

[Xtonite]

My kids (8 and 10) have their own building society accounts here in the UK and I have been told that if I close the accounts a cheque made payable to the child will be issued. Can I pay a UK building society cheque into a bank in Australia? or do I take the cash and leave the account open (with £1 in it). What have others done in this situation?

Also can anyone recommend any childrens accounts in Melbourne.


Thanks

[graham$nic]

Hi we have kept our children's accounts open as there nan and grandad put money in for birthdays etc.I can tell you that a realtive sent a cheque for one of my children for 20 pound and westpac our bank here wanted to charge $15 to cash it and it would take six weeks............i sent it back to the uk to be put into my account as it was silly as they would have not got much money back.sorry i cannot be of much help but hope it helps a little nic xx

[Quoll]

Leave them open as long as they dont charge fees. It isnt worth the effort of trying to put a UK cheque into an Aus account. If they can access it via internet banking (or you can) then leave them open so the rellies can give them money or cheques if they want to. If they build up enough you can do an internet transfer, otherwise leave it there for them for their GAP year when they will want to head off back to UK anyway - they will thank you for leaving an account open so they dont have to go through the palaver of opening a new one!

[Ms_Fi]

We're leaving the kids accounts open - taking out enough to pay for their one way flights to Aus and then about $1000 each for them so they can open accounts here but leaving the rest here.

Can you withdraw some of the money as cash or would it only be a cheque?

[Ironside]

Hi there

Don't know if this is still relevant but i lloked at a bank called Bankwest recently who are backed by HBOS. They currently have kids account with 10% interest!!! You need to pay in monthly $$$$$ but only about $25-$350 or something

They have a regular savers account as well for anybody that has 9%interest.


You need a transaction account with them inorder to openthese accounts but it seemed ok to me unless i missed something :)

BankWest is the link

[Xtonite]

Thanks for your replies.

Its a wise suggestion to leave the accounts open. I think I'll just draw some of the cash to open new accounts in Aus.

Thanks for the Bankwest tip off Ironside it looks a far better interest rate than they are getting here at the moment.

Xtonite