When to open a bank account?

[peterc1983]

I'm just wondering what the feeling is for the best time to open a bank account, prior to immigration? I will have savings from my UK accounts to move to Oz, but am unclear if there is any benefit in having the account open early?

[tonyman]

pete , of course you need to open it early .................can all be done from the uk and nothing to worry about once you are here ......

[Pumpkin]

I'm just wondering what the feeling is for the best time to open a bank account, prior to immigration? I will have savings from my UK accounts to move to Oz, but am unclear if there is any benefit in having the account open early?

 

No I can't think of any benefit of opening it early. The downside to opening it early and transferring money over is that if your plans change (e.g. Family disaster) your money is stuck there until you can show your face in person to activate the account.

[Rob64]

You should wait until you get to oz and do it. All very straightforward we went with the commonwealth and had no issues.

[Guest]

We opened an account before we left the UK. With Commonwealth. Transferred money into it after we arrived and had collected our bank cards and activated the account in person. Took a few days to show up and we had some cash and a CC to cover us till then.

 

I liked opening it from overseas mainly as then we knew we just had to head into the CBD, see our account manager and sign on the dotted line and we were away. We also got a savings account, child account and one or two other things sorted at the appointment and our account manager was really organised in sorting everything we needed. We also had her work phone number to contact her and bypass going through the bank call centre which proved useful in the early weeks and even now she checks in now and again and we know we can call her if we have any problems.

[xxlornaxx]

we opened the day we arrived, all smooth and account in use straight away.

[CollegeGirl]

I waited until I got to Australia to open mine, and it was fine. Walked in, talked to someone and walked out half an hour later with all my accounts set up. Easy peasy. There is a reduced ID requirement for new migrants for the first six weeks, so if you do wait until you get there, just don't wait any longer than six weeks to do it or you'll need additional forms of ID.