Hello,
I am planning to come to Australia in September and will be
there for about a year. The problem being that I would like
to open a bank acount there but will have no permanent
address. I dont particuarly fancy having lots af travellers
cheques sitting in my bag. I have heard that certain banks
in Oz have agreements with English banks in order to setup
accounts. Anybody know anything about this??
Thanks
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I know Natwest and ANZ have some kind of agreement.
Probably worth your while to have a chat with Natwest to
check it out. It's a hell of a lot easier to open a bank
account in Australia than it is trying to open one in the
UK. I spent 2 months doing the rounds of the banks trying
to open an account and finally someone at Barclays fudged
it a bit for me so I could get one. (I'm an Aussie on a 4
year ancestry visa and have been working since I arrived.)
In Australia you just have to prove 100 points worth of
identification plus provide a tax file number. Just having
your passport is worth a load of points. You probably won't
need it but take a letter of recommendation from your bank
in the UK just in case. All the UK backpackers that I knew
in Oz had bank accounts with the Commonwealth Bank and most
used the hostel that they were staying in for the address.
You will be able to use Barclays, Lloyds and Midlands debit
cards in both Westpac and Commonwealth Bank ATM's. Remember
as a UK citizen you are entitled to a visitors medicare
card. Make sure you apply for one when you arrive. This
enables free treatment at doctors surgeries who bulk bill.
Unfortunately you would have to pay for prescriptions and
pathology tests unless you go to a hospital.
Choose one of the Big 4 banks, Commonwealth, ANZ, NAB or
Westpac. They have branches and ATMs all over Australia. I
think Westpac have an on-line facility where you can open
an Australian account from overseas. All the other banks
also have web-sites, I think.
Another option is to open an account when you get here and
then contact a relative at home to transfer over your funds
to the new account.
You don't have to provide a tax file number but if you
don't you're interest will be taxed at the top marginal
rate (48.5%).
I tried unsuccessfully to open a bank account in Oz from
the UK. I can't remember what the problem was right now.
However once I arrived here (Australia), just about the
only bank that would open an account without a permanent
address was ANZ. They were very helpful and issued ATM
cards on the spot (try the branch at Bathurst/Castlereagh
St. in Sydney for this)
I arrived last Sept in Oz also with many traveller chqs and
no permanent address... all you do is make sure you'll be
in one place for about a week - put that hostels address and
they will send you your bank card in the mail --- or
alternly you can pick it up one week later at the bank...
just put any hostels address and you'll be find...
happy travels :)
but I wouldn't worry about the tax rate - I think I earned
a whopping $0.24 on my Commonwealth account, year before
last! $0.12 won't break you!
Hi,
it is easy to open a bank account! Just go to the bank,
show your passport and of you go. Your passport has got
enough points to open an account, but just in the first 4
weeks or so. So be quick and check.
We opened an account with the Commenwealth Bank and it was
excelent! You can pick up you money everywhere, even in the
smallest town, because if there is no bank you can get the
money at every post office!!!
We transferred a big sum of money from home, which saved us
paying for the transfer a couple of times.
So, very easy, you see.
Have good fun! We loved it!
Hey Paul
I rang up the London branch of I think it was ANZ, but the
woman there put on a long-suffering tone as if shed heard
that question a thousamd times before, and explained that
you couldn't open an account until you got to Australia.
Instead, I opened an Australian
Dollar account at my bank in the UK. Its already paid off
as I changed ú2000 two months ago at an exchange rate of
2.62, and the rate has now dropped to 2.43.
They charge nothing for conversion, but have an admin fee
of ú12 a quarter. They also dont give you any interest on
their current account. I've got a chequebook too, so when I
open an Australian account I will either write them a
chequ, or get a transfer from my bank, whichever has the
smaller charge.
Mine is at Natwest, but the other UK banks will do the same
sort of thing.
jackie
RE the permanent address issue, I opened a non-resident a/c
with NAB. My resident address was my home address in
Ireland and I had an Aussie mailing address which was the
Poste Restante in the post office in the city centre as i
didn't have a permanent address at the time. I never
bothered to change it and the bank didn't mind. THat said
the process was somewhat easier for me as NAB has an Irish
subsidiary, National Irish Bank, and they did all the paper
work for me. I don't know if the big 4 banks mentioned have
a UK subsidiary.