Opening bank account from UK

[Penny Turvey]

We are emigrating from the UK in March and will need to open a joint bank account. Will will have the proceeds from the sale of our house and savings to transfer to Australia and it would make sense to have a bank account open to receive the transfers before we move. The alternative would be to transfer it all to a currency exchange company such as Halo or Wise, but I am uncomfortable about leaving a sizeable amount of funds with them until we have a bank account. Has anyone done this successfully please? Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Penny

 

[FirstWorldProblems]

 

[InnerVoice]

5 hours ago, Penny Turvey said:

We are emigrating from the UK in March and will need to open a joint bank account. Will will have the proceeds from the sale of our house and savings to transfer to Australia and it would make sense to have a bank account open to receive the transfers before we move. The alternative would be to transfer it all to a currency exchange company such as Halo or Wise, but I am uncomfortable about leaving a sizeable amount of funds with them until we have a bank account. Has anyone done this successfully please? Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Penny

I agree. I don't think deposits held in Wise's accounts are covered by the financial services compensation scheme, even though they do state somewhere that if they ever went bust then clients' funds are ringfenced. The HSBC Australia account that FWP mentioned seems like the easiest option, although I might also look into UBank too because they are an online bank who currently pay an attractive 5.5% interest on savings.

[Marisawright]

5 hours ago, Penny Turvey said:

We are emigrating from the UK in March and will need to open a joint bank account. Will will have the proceeds from the sale of our house and savings to transfer to Australia and it would make sense to have a bank account open to receive the transfers before we move. The alternative would be to transfer it all to a currency exchange company such as Halo or Wise, but I am uncomfortable about leaving a sizeable amount of funds with them until we have a bank account. Has anyone done this successfully please? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

You would be wise to use a currency exchange company, even if you have an Aussie bank account open before you move.  

 

[Dimmo]

3 hours ago, FirstWorldProblems said:

 

I did this as well and used wise to transfer the proceeds of our house sale. It was all very simple. HSBC don't have a lot of branches in Australia so you will probably want to switch to another bank when you get here, but it works well for the first phase.

[Marisawright]

1 hour ago, Dimmo said:

I did this as well and used wise to transfer the proceeds of our house sale. It was all very simple. HSBC don't have a lot of branches in Australia so you will probably want to switch to another bank when you get here, but it works well for the first phase.

However, it depends how they do their banking.  I can't remember the last time I had to visit a bank branch.

[FirstWorldProblems]

You’d think transferring your money from your uk hsbc account to your Australia hsbc account would get you the best rate, but not at all.  Wise is the way to go. 

[Ausvisitor]

We moved ours via Wise in chunks of about 25k GBP at a time. 

No-one got close to the rate they offered and the initial pain of transferring in smaller chunks was worth it for the saving on commission and exchange loading.

You can do larger transfers but I work on the principle I can afford to lose 25k because I made a mistake (I won't be happy but it won't be wary shattering) but I don't want to stuff up a 500k transfer

 

(As I've mentioned money in this post I give a "certain someone" about 2 hours before they wade in with some comment about me being out of touch and money centric)

Edited December 28, 2024 by Ausvisitor

[Dimmo]

2 hours ago, Marisawright said:

However, it depends how they do their banking.  I can't remember the last time I had to visit a bank branch.

Neither do I, but their app is not as well featured as the neo banks, so you are left with an offering that compares poorly with both traditional and neo banks

Edited December 28, 2024 by Dimmo

[Ausvisitor]

The Aussie banks used to let you open an account before landing but now (due to a change in the money laundering laws and customer ID) they don't offer this so you are restricted to some of the global offerings like the HSBC one

Honestly it's just as easy to get the money put into a UK account and transfer it once you have the AUS one set up. 

One last point, try not to close your UK accounts as you won't be able to open one from AUS if you need one (for the same reasons )

[InnerVoice]

5 hours ago, Marisawright said:

However, it depends how they do their banking.  I can't remember the last time I had to visit a bank branch.

Me neither, but it's worth having an account with one of the Big 4 so you can make free cash withdrawals whenever needed. HSBC only have ATM machines in major cities. And before anybody says "who uses cash anymore", occasionally someone cuts through a fibre cable or a software update goes awry, and then we're all back to the stone age for a day or two!

[Parley]

25 minutes ago, InnerVoice said:

Me neither, but it's worth having an account with one of the Big 4 so you can make free cash withdrawals whenever needed. HSBC only have ATM machines in major cities. And before anybody says "who uses cash anymore", occasionally someone cuts through a fibre cable or a software update goes awry, and then we're all back to the stone age for a day or two!

Only if you have all your money in only 1 bank, which is not very smart.

 

[InnerVoice]

9 minutes ago, Parley said:

Only if you have all your money in only 1 bank, which is not very smart.

You clearly haven't understood my point.

[Toots]

1 hour ago, InnerVoice said:

Me neither, but it's worth having an account with one of the Big 4 so you can make free cash withdrawals whenever needed. HSBC only have ATM machines in major cities. And before anybody says "who uses cash anymore", occasionally someone cuts through a fibre cable or a software update goes awry, and then we're all back to the stone age for a day or two!

It's happened a couple of times here.  Early this year in Coles some shoppers were forced to abandon their trolleys and shopping baskets at the tills after discovering the supermarket was battling “IT issues” that prevented them from paying for their food on card.  I always carry $50 cash on me so was lucky enough to pay for my goodies that way.  

[Cheery Thistle]

To the OP I would recommend looking into an FX currency exchange broker or similar. 

[Marisawright]

13 hours ago, InnerVoice said:

Me neither, but it's worth having an account with one of the Big 4 so you can make free cash withdrawals whenever needed. HSBC only have ATM machines in major cities. 

...but you can use your HSBC card to withdraw cash free at all of the Big 4 ATMs, you don't need an account with them.

https://www.ausbanking.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/ABA-ATMs-that-are-free-to-use-FA-Accessible.pdf

[Penny Turvey]

Many thanks for your help everyone, We already bank with HSBC here in the UK, so I think we will open an Australian account with them to start with. Will use Halo or Wise to get the best.rates, rather than those HSBC have to offer. Will probably then go for one of the larger banks eventually. Thanks again.

[InnerVoice]

13 hours ago, Toots said:

It's happened a couple of times here.  Early this year in Coles some shoppers were forced to abandon their trolleys and shopping baskets at the tills after discovering the supermarket was battling “IT issues” that prevented them from paying for their food on card.  I always carry $50 cash on me so was lucky enough to pay for my goodies that way.  

And up here too. You couldn't go to an ATM and get cash out because they were also affected, so if didn't already have some then you were stuffed. Ditto the $50!

[Marisawright]

1 hour ago, Penny Turvey said:

Many thanks for your help everyone, We already bank with HSBC here in the UK, so I think we will open an Australian account with them to start with. Will use Halo or Wise to get the best.rates, rather than those HSBC have to offer. Will probably then go for one of the larger banks eventually.

Why?  Once you get to Australia, you'll discover that the "big 4" banks have a terrible reputation.   

Most Australians still bank with one of the big 4 but it's only out of laziness, or a misguided fear that smaller banks are less secure.  All bank deposits in all banks (up to $250,000) are guaranteed by the Australian government.   Also, the smaller banks often have better interest rates on their savings and better mortgage deals. 

I'm sure some people will drop in to say they've banked with NAB or Westpac for years and never had a problem.  All I can say is, how would they know?  There was a Royal Commission into the banks in 2017 which found all four of them were rorting their customers one way or another.  I used to bank with the Commonwealth Bank, and I'd have said I never had a problem either, yet it turned out that I was one of those customers that was rorted (in my case, sneaky overcharging on my mortgage).   I'd never have known if it wasn't for the Royal Commission.  As it was, I got a nice refund of a few thousand dollars. 

[Parley]

6 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

Why?  Once you get to Australia, you'll discover that the "big 4" banks have a terrible reputation.   

Most Australians still bank with one of the big 4 but it's only out of laziness, or a misguided fear that smaller banks are less secure.  All bank deposits in all banks (up to $250,000) are guaranteed by the Australian government.   Also, the smaller banks often have better interest rates on their savings and better mortgage deals. 

I'm sure some people will drop in to say they've banked with NAB or Westpac for years and never had a problem.  All I can say is, how would they know?  There was a Royal Commission into the banks in 2017 which found all four of them were rorting their customers one way or another.  I used to bank with the Commonwealth Bank, and I'd have said I never had a problem either, yet it turned out that I was one of those customers that was rorted (in my case, sneaky overcharging on my mortgage).   I'd never have known if it wasn't for the Royal Commission.  As it was, I got a nice refund of a few thousand dollars. 

If you bank with Small Fry Bank and they go under, it is fine to say the Australian Government will guarantee my deposit. But what is unknown is how long it will take them to reimburse you. If you are without money for 6 months it won't be very satisfactory.

I would definitely keep money in multiple banks for this reason and also for the case where main bank A is offline due to a software stuffup. You can then revert to paying using your bank B.

My main bank is a Big 4 with HSBC and a couple of other also. Probably overkill but no fees involved, just a transaction account and a high interest savings account in each.

[InnerVoice]

6 minutes ago, Parley said:

If you bank with Small Fry Bank and they go under, it is fine to say the Australian Government will guarantee my deposit. But what is unknown is how long it will take them to reimburse you. If you are without money for 6 months it won't be very satisfactory.

I would definitely keep money in multiple banks for this reason and also for the case where main bank A is offline due to a software stuffup. You can then revert to paying using your bank B.

My main bank is a Big 4 with HSBC and a couple of other also. Probably overkill but no fees involved, just a transaction account and a high interest savings account in each.

I think it makes sense too given that most Australian banks have now ditched the monthly account fee for the privilege of having an account with them. I have an account with a Big 4 bank and UBank.

[Ausvisitor]

1 hour ago, Parley said:

If you bank with Small Fry Bank and they go under, it is fine to say the Australian Government will guarantee my deposit. But what is unknown is how long it will take them to reimburse you. If you are without money for 6 months it won't be very satisfactory.

I would definitely keep money in multiple banks for this reason and also for the case where main bank A is offline due to a software stuffup. You can then revert to paying using your bank B.

My main bank is a Big 4 with HSBC and a couple of other also. Probably overkill but no fees involved, just a transaction account and a high interest savings account in each.

There are very few small banks (properly small and not just "not big 4" in Australia) there are many that appear so but are wholly owned by one of the big 4. So they wouldn't go under as the parent bank and the government would both be on the hook...

[Parley]

50 minutes ago, InnerVoice said:

I think it makes sense too given that most Australian banks have now ditched the monthly account fee for the privilege of having an account with them. I have an account with a Big 4 bank and UBank.

I'm such  a tightarse that i opened an HSBC account and a Suncorp account when they offered $50 as a signup bonus a few years back.

I also bank mainly with NAB and Ubank.

[Ausvisitor]

Just now, Parley said:

I'm such  a tightarse that i opened an HSBC account and a Suncorp account when they offered $50 as a signup bonus a few years back.

I also bank mainly with NAB and Ubank.

So we can simplify that sentence to you bank with NAB as UBank is a wholly owned operating subsidiary of NAB. So you have no more cover against issues than someone banking only with NAB - they use the same infrastructure and are covered by a single "bankruptcy guarantee" so you would need to keep under $250k across both accounts rather than $250k in each (which you could do if you banked with NAB and ANZ for example)

[Parley]

1 minute ago, Ausvisitor said:

There are very few small banks (properly small and not just "not big 4" in Australia) there are many that appear so but are wholly owned by one of the big 4. So they wouldn't go under as the parent bank and the government would both be on the hook...

When i was young there were small players called Building Societies which operated like banks but weren't. It used to be very hard to get official Bank status. 

Now they seem to let any Tom Dick or Harry be a bank and all the building societies and credit unions have been rebadged to be banks.

So i disagree with your statement.