Kenfrapin Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Evening, Lots of useful threads on here on opening bank accounts but still unsure so decided it's best to post our idea here and welcome better suggestions from anyone else who has gone through a similar experience. Our travel plan includes a 2 week holiday in May and move out early Sept, 2016 We have a number of bank accounts plus ISAs in the UK (HSBC, Santander and Natwest) and S&S ISAs with Hargreaves and Aberdeen. We will definitely close all cash and stock ISAs. I dont know if we can keep any current/savings account open in the UK if we dont have a local address so I am assuming we have to close it. I would prefer keeping atleast one account open, can we do this? We dont have family here to provide a local address after we move out Open with NAB and use Moneycorp to transfer all our cash, merely going by good stories of this service on the forum. We can upgrade to HSBC Premier account in the UK and open an Aus account. HSBC will give us debit cards while we are in the UK itself which is why we prefer going with them plus we then have 2 separate bank accounts opened We have private pensions with Hargreaves which we leave as is until a solution of transferring UK Pensions comes out, all we need to do is inform Hargreaves of our move NAB and HSBC also dont have account fees, I have read about Westpac, Commbank, ANZ etc but given most banks are the same NAB and HSBC make sense for us Any better suggestions from your experiences that can help us or pitfalls to avoid? Thanks KnK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wirephobia Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Hi, I have no advice to offer I'm afraid, but was interested to note your plan to use HSBC and obtain Aus debit cards while in the UK. Is it 100% confirmed that they will do this? If so, I'd think about opening a Premier account with them myself to do the same (I understand the Premier account pre-reqs). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petals Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 I use Nab and have been with them for over forty years and never wanted to change. I also use ING and AMP for on line banking and they are very easy to get along with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rammygirl Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Do keep a UK bank account open. Work out which will be best for online access etc. once you are not resident it is now impossible to open a UK bank account. It is useful for so many things including your pension one day. We still have our Nationwide accounts and have registered our address in Australia with them. They are happy to send new cards over etc. Ask your banks about it and go with the one that is most favourable. Just a couple of things to note though. Make sure you use the account at least once a year so it doesn't become dormant. If transactions require a texted code, then this can be an issue as most will not send to an overseas number. I keep my UK sim alive for our business account in Santander UK, but do not have an issue with Nationwide as the card reader suffices. we also kept our ISAs. We cannot move or add to them but as we may return to the UK and don't need them yet ....... We do however have to pay tax on the interest in Oz so TBH probably not really worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenfrapin Posted February 21, 2016 Author Share Posted February 21, 2016 Hi,I have no advice to offer I'm afraid, but was interested to note your plan to use HSBC and obtain Aus debit cards while in the UK. Is it 100% confirmed that they will do this? If so, I'd think about opening a Premier account with them myself to do the same (I understand the Premier account pre-reqs). My friend just moved to the States and they did this for him. I dont believe you need a Premier Account to do this, the application processing time is quicker thats all. I thought of upgrading because they have some nice perks and we will have more than the £10k they need as a pre-req, I also believe they waive off fees for moving money which is a nice to have feature The main reason is it's really useful to have our cards on us before we move, and I am quite happy with the service from HSBC over the past 10 years. Check it out, I will be contacting them once we get our visa grant, thats a pre-req with HSBC to being a 'migrating' customer KnK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenfrapin Posted February 21, 2016 Author Share Posted February 21, 2016 And thank you Petals and RammyGirl NAB does have a good rep so we definitely go with them We checked about ISAs, yes we may return but the hassle of declaring dividends/gains dint make it worth our while. We could one day return (never say never and all that), but just makes sense for us to move everything over when we move. I will check with the banks and keep an account open, thank you for the heads up about sending the code by text, we may just keep our Natwest Accounts open! KnK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gbye grey sky Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Do keep a UK bank account open. Work out which will be best for online access etc. once you are not resident it is now impossible to open a UK bank account. It is useful for so many things including your pension one day. We still have our Nationwide accounts and have registered our address in Australia with them. They are happy to send new cards over etc. Ask your banks about it and go with the one that is most favourable. Just a couple of things to note though. Make sure you use the account at least once a year so it doesn't become dormant. If transactions require a texted code, then this can be an issue as most will not send to an overseas number. I keep my UK sim alive for our business account in Santander UK, but do not have an issue with Nationwide as the card reader suffices. we also kept our ISAs. We cannot move or add to them but as we may return to the UK and don't need them yet ....... We do however have to pay tax on the interest in Oz so TBH probably not really worth it. This was interesting for me. We have kept our First Direct account in UK open though have not yet told them we are in Oz (mail is on a 12 month redirect still to a UK relative and we do not receive paper statements etc anyway). The texted code goes to my old UK PAYG phone but as I am not using this really now I was going to abandon it once my credit ran out but if First Direct will not accept an overseas number that will give rise to an issue for me with internet banking (even though there are few transactions now and going forward). Appreciate the heads up on this. To the OP I agree with your proposals fully. Very wise to close the ISAs. We did not close cash ISAs until we got here and it has been a real pain to get our money as they insist you either attend branch or provde certified ID ( which they then keepmlosing and insist on replication). We still have stocks and shares ISAs which are also going to be a pain to close down I am sure, but we are holding fire because of recent losses and exchange rate falls (no idea though if we are doing the right thing!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rammygirl Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Yes with our Santander business account they are happy with us having an Australian address and insist on posting statements to us, but they can not use an Australian mobile number for any new transactions or transfers. So I keep a PAYG sim from TESCO in an old phone for this, it also comes in handy on our visits back to the UK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenfrapin Posted February 22, 2016 Author Share Posted February 22, 2016 This was interesting for me. We have kept our First Direct account in UK open though have not yet told them we are in Oz (mail is on a 12 month redirect still to a UK relative and we do not receive paper statements etc anyway). The texted code goes to my old UK PAYG phone but as I am not using this really now I was going to abandon it once my credit ran out but if First Direct will not accept an overseas number that will give rise to an issue for me with internet banking (even though there are few transactions now and going forward). Appreciate the heads up on this. To the OP I agree with your proposals fully. Very wise to close the ISAs. We did not close cash ISAs until we got here and it has been a real pain to get our money as they insist you either attend branch or provde certified ID ( which they then keepmlosing and insist on replication). We still have stocks and shares ISAs which are also going to be a pain to close down I am sure, but we are holding fire because of recent losses and exchange rate falls (no idea though if we are doing the right thing!). I was planning to just empty our Cash ISA accounts and then call them to close it, did not plan to go down to the branch and provide IDs!!! We too have a small loss in our S&S portfolio, especially the OH's Aberdeen portfolio, so I am in two minds to close it out or stay put.....luckily my S&S with Hargreaves is somehow holding at -4% and steadily recovering....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Yes with our Santander business account they are happy with us having an Australian address and insist on posting statements to us, but they can not use an Australian mobile number for any new transactions or transfers. So I keep a PAYG sim from TESCO in an old phone for this, it also comes in handy on our visits back to the UK. Well that's strange. I have a Santander personal account and they have no problem at all using an Australian mobile number (in case anyone is wondering they send a code number by SMS to authorise payments to new payees). Perhaps they expect to have a higher volume of transactions on a business account and hence a higher cost to them? Anyway just to reassure anyone with a Santander personal account that you don't need a UK sim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenfrapin Posted February 22, 2016 Author Share Posted February 22, 2016 Well that's strange. I have a Santander personal account and they have no problem at all using an Australian mobile number (in case anyone is wondering they send a code number by SMS to authorise payments to new payees). Perhaps they expect to have a higher volume of transactions on a business account and hence a higher cost to them? Anyway just to reassure anyone with a Santander personal account that you don't need a UK sim. I will put the question to Santander and update what they come back with, it will be great if they dont want a local number because we dont mind paying the monthly fee for the interest rate until a time where we move every single penny over to Aus, that way we can still have some funds in the UK for any emergencies KnK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CNC FABS Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 I business bank with Santander as well. For my £ 7.50 monthly fee, I would hope they can text overseas. After all it's a global world now. Also NAB are fine texting me codes on my UK number while I am still here still (no monthly fee). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rammygirl Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Nab have problems with some UK mobile providers though, no idea why. My son cannot get them on his UK mobile. Good to know about the Santander, maybe the technology has changed or maybe it is just an issue with the business account. I do not pay any fees for my UK banking, that along with poor interest rates would be an issue. Still we are stuck with what we have as you can't move money anymore. I can't even open a new account with an existing bank in UK to get better interest. Nationwide said even though I am an existing customer I would have to use their International Bank to open another account. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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