Money transfer Eur vs Aud

[massimo]

Hi everyone,

I just moved from Italy to Australia and I would like to move my savings downunder.

I know there is a pomsinoz partner and I will difinitely have a look at their service but I would also like to get a broader view before asking them as it is quite a considerable amount (at least for my finance).

The bank to bank does not seem to be a good solution.

 

Have anyone transferred money from euro to aus dollars recently? Did you benchmark the exchange rates and services offered on the market?

 

I have never used this kind of service and I am quite concerned to put most of my saving in an account I do not know.

 

Cheers

[Candygirl]

We are Moneycorp members and use them for all our currency transactions without any probs.

 

My advice would be to speak to all the currency houses (Curencies Direct and HIFX are a couple of others that I can think of off the top of my head), explain what you would like to do and see who offers the best advice and rates. They are the experts and will know what is the best thing to do.

 

Good Luck.

[aster]

For starters the one thing you absolutely do not want to do is send Euros to a AUD-denominated account and have the bank run the conversion automatically.

 

In your case it's either a case of using a dedicated exchange service or having a bank do the currency conversion. The latter isn't necessarily a bad option depending on the bank. With Citi you can usually negotiate the rate in person (especially as a CitiGold customer), whereas HSBC has a GetRate function that keeps the spreads very tight.

 

I once did a check using GetRate and for 10k EUR the rates I was offered online were as follows:

 

At the same time (literally click here and click there)...

XE mid-rate: $12,702.56

HSBC GetRate: $12,661.10

 

So not bad at all IMO. Some have mentioned Ozforex as a good choice but I have never dealt with them before so I cannot comment.

[Guest GeorgeD]

I used HiFX for my exchange from GBP to AUD. Please, please, please don't use a bank. It's the most expensive way of doing it. These forex companies are all reputable companies adn handle millions of dollars of transactions every day for a reason...they give much better value than a bank. Banks are 'easy' BUt they are only easy if you already have an account...forex is the same, you open an account then you can start using them. Once you have the account it is as easy as a bank.

 

My advice would be to find a couple of providers in Italy, open accounts with them, and then when you are ready to carry out your transaction, see the exact rate for your transfer (it won't be the rate on the front of their website, see EXACTLY how much you will get for your transfer) and then do the transaction with whoever gives you the most dollars at the end. One day provider A might be best, but ten minutes later provider B might be better...hence the reason to open a couple to give you an option.