Which is better?

[Cal2]

Im getting conflicting opinions (of cousrse!) which is better to transfer money from the UK to Australia in pounds or dollars?

 

 Im confused 

[Marisawright]

Just now, Cal2 said:

Im getting conflicting opinions (of cousrse!) which is better to transfer money from the UK to Australia in pounds or dollars?

 

 Im confused 

You transfer your pounds into your Moneycorp (or Transferwise or whatever) account in pounds.  Then you ask them to convert it to dollars.  Then when you are ready, you instruct them to transfer those dollars to your Australian bank account.

[Cal2]

thanks - but I actually was transferring it direct from my UK bank to the Australian one - does that make a difference?

 

 

 

[ramot]

6 minutes ago, Cal2 said:

thanks - but I actually was transferring it direct from my UK bank to the Australian one - does that make a difference?

 

 

 

Might be worth checking the exchange rate transferring between banks or using the above companies mentioned in Marisa’s post. We use transfer wise, to transfer UK income every month, we get better rate and money is usually received next day. Wouldn’t use bank to bank transfer.

Edited May 5, 2020 by ramot

[Lavers]

Use a moneytransfer company you will save a fair bit compared to using a bank.

[Marleys]

Open up a Revolut account for yourself. According to this, transfers up to 6,500$/month are no-fee and at the interbank exchange rate. So they do not charge any extra, like most of the others banks or transfer services. Personally I've used Revolut while I was living in Spain, UK and worked great in Australia. 

[Lavers]

8 minutes ago, Marleys said:

Open up a Revolut account for yourself. According to this, transfers up to 6,500$/month are no-fee and at the interbank exchange rate. So they do not charge any extra, like most of the others banks or transfer services. Personally I've used Revolut while I was living in Spain, UK and worked great in Australia. 

It is revolut that I use, I was concerned about keeping my money in it though so I opened up my Aus account so transfer it straight away.

[Marleys]

23 hours ago, Lavers said:

It is revolut that I use, I was concerned about keeping my money in it though so I opened up my Aus account so transfer it straight away.

I think you can be calm, it's insured under EDIS. Just a couple of days they've transferred me from e-money institution, to Revolut Bank. Also they are FDIC insured in USA (up to 250,000$). So I guess it depends which country you are registered at the moment. But I doubt there will be problem with Revolut. The only problems people have is when they try to use it for business purposes. This is why you have to open a different Revolut business account. 

[Lavers]

Revolut in the UK isn't covered by FSCS (which is up to £85000) but revolut do say that they hold your money with Barclay's or Lloyd's bank.

So if anything did happen to revolut then you should get your money back, I just wasn't comfortable with it.

The only reason I was going to hold it with revolut was because I thought that if I sent my money to Aus and I didn't go for whatever reason, then it would be awkward sending my money back.

I just bit the bullet though and sent it via revolut to my Aus account.

It is a handy card to use though and there's no fees when I paid my visas.

[Susan from Moneycorp]

On 05/05/2020 at 11:20, ramot said:

Might be worth checking the exchange rate transferring between banks or using the above companies mentioned in Marisa’s post. We use transfer wise, to transfer UK income every month, we get better rate and money is usually received next day. Wouldn’t use bank to bank transfer.

Hello
You can definitely transfer bank to bank in Pounds - but whichever bank you transfer into here will expect to do the FX conversion for you. And the rates are really poor.  Even if you pay your GBP into,  say, a GBP account with CBA in Australia, always use an outside company to do the FX for you.  The Bank's margins here are shocking! between 3-5%