Transferring $$$ to Australia - help!

[cbr shadow]

My wife and I live in Chicago and have a checking account and savings account at a local very small bank that we've always banked with. My wife accepted a job in Sydney for a 2 year project through her company, so we're moving there later this year. There will be 2 months where she'll be in Sydney and I'll still be in Chicago.
What's the best way to bring money to Australia? How can she have access to our money while she's there?
I assume we should open a checking account with Chase or another big bank to make things easier (we were going to do this soon anyway).

Any tips for getting money there? It'll need to be AUD instead of USD of course. Is there a good way to transfer money and her and I both have access to it?

Thanks!
-Ryan

[shotgunwilly]

Bitcoin?  :D

[marty998]

PM'd!

[Lukim]

Your wife could open an account with an Australian bank (which could include an international bank with an Australian subsidiary such as Citibank or HSBC) and open both an Australian dollar and US dollar accounts.

Australia has 4 very large banks (very large even by international standards) and each of them will have US dollar accounts.

I suspect your wife will not be able to open the account until she arrives due to Know Your Customer requirements.

The short term thing is simply to use an ATM card to access her US account.  The fees are relatively small.  I always use my US dollar ATM card for getting cash out at ATMs in Australia. The fee is $2.50 per withdrawal but you can take up to $1000 per day and the exchange rate is competitive.

[theconcierge]

will she be earning Australian Dollars?or still in USD?

[Jamesqf]

Don't know about Australia specifically, but when I worked in Europe a few years ago, the easiest (and cheapest) way to transfer money was as $100 bills.

[agent_clone]

I don't know if it makes any difference but my sister went travelling around the world for a year with a HSBC bank account.  When they detected credit card fraud on her card they arranged a new one for her fairly quickly.  I have no idea about fees etc for her though.

I would agree with Lukim on something like Citibank or HSBC, they have branches in Australia so if needed you can go visit them.

If using a credit card make sure that it has a 4 or 6 digit PIN number, they are dropping the ability to sign with credit cards in August in Australia.

[Ozstache]

We've gone the other way twice, ie. to the USA from Oz to live for a couple of years. Both times we opened a bank account at a major bank in the destination country (BOA) when we got there and arranged for an electronic transfer of a big wad of money from our Oz bank account converted to the local currency. The fees weren't too bad considering the quantity of cash we were transferring (eg. over $100K transferred upon return to Oz).

No bank in the USA would give us a credit card when we first got there, as we had no history on US credit checking systems, so we had to use debit cards until we established some street cred' (then they wouldn't stop sending us the damn things!). I don't know if the same applies with Australian banks, but it might be something to be aware of in case they pull this line on you.

[SU]

I don't use this service, but I use their rates as a benchmark to negotiate an exchange rate with my bank: http://www.usforex.com/our-services/transfer-money/australia

Apart from that, have a look at which Australian banks partner with your US bank - you may still incur some transaction costs, but they will be lower. My local bank offers free ATM withdrawals through its partner banks overseas; this is good for smaller amounts, but for larger sums ($5000+) I would do a transfer through the bank's forex service (or the one I linked to above) as the exchange rate is better. You will, however, pay a fee for the transfer and a fee to receive it in your Australian account (so if you are really keen, you can do the maths comparing the fees on transferring larger sums of money from account to account, offset by the more competitive exchange rate it will give you vs ATM withdrawals).

[swestache]

For sums above US $10.000, it's worth getting a good exchange rate instead of just happily donating money away.

And the thing is, every single major bank will ROYALLY screw you on the exchange rate spread (while smugly pretending that there are "no fees" !). The fee is hidden in the spread between buy/sell.

The way around this is to use an exchange broker that specializes in these kinds of transactions.

This is how you do it:

1. Open an AUD bank account i Australia as soon as possible. Look into the 100-points of ID system. You'll need an Australian address(use works address), a Tax File Number(get from ATO online) and some ID basically (passport).
2. Open an ozforex.com currency exchange account.
3. Make a deal with ozforex to exchange AUD->USD(they charge no fees and their exchange rate is pretty good by default but more on that later)
4. Deposit the correct USD amount in their USD account in America. Note this is not an international transfer it's a local US funds transfer so it's pretty fast (1 day usually).
5. They will deposit the corresponding amount in AUD in your local account in Australia. Done.

Now, for amounts above $100.000 ozforex.com are willing to negotiate on the spread that they take (this is not advertised of course : ), it's around 9 bps I believe which is already pretty good.

But here's how you get an even better rate for larger sums.

1. Negotiate the spread a few bps.
2. Don't use the "spot price", tell them you want to place a limit order. You will need to place/amend it over the phone but you can view online just fine.

To determine a reasonable limit price of your order, look at this chart of the actual exchange interbank exchange rate a few days/weeks back (depending on how long you're willing to wait for your order to go through and be locked-in).

This is what the banks and ozforex are dealing with:

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=AUD

The thing with currencies is that they have a tendency to fluctuate quite a lot, and you can always lower your limit price if you need the money faster.

Your limit order will eventually hit one of the ups of the market and all of a sudden you've got a better exchange rate than the interbank spot price at that time because your deal is locked in whereas the market will keep moving.

Not bad for 10 minutes of work.

Eventually you have a deal with ozforex.com ("xe.com" are similar but I have not used them myself but I hear good things) and end up with nice clean fresh AUD.

[Distshore]

What swestache said!

I used that exact process previously to transfer money both to Australia (from US) and back.  For amounts under $5000 you can use Paypal or similar, but you take a nasty hit on the exchange rate + a transfer fee. 

Over $5000, use a forex service.  I used Barclay's in London as they are licensed in NY, and Ozforex is not.

However, the first port of call should be calling ozforex regarding an account.  They can advise you on who is licensed to operate in your state, and on setting up an account.

And the best thing is, now I have a currency broker on my contacts list; makes me feel very important ;)

[simmons0ian]

I have been using http://www.knightsbridgefx.com/ from a few years, they are the best when it comes to providing great exchange rates for international transfers. Do use them and share your experience here with us.

[rachael talcott]

Charles Schwab has an account that she could use for the interim two months.  You get a debit card to use anywhere in the world, even in ATMs, and if you are charged a fee by the ATM CS will reimburse.  The exchange rate, at least when I was in Europe, is the same as that reported by google if you ask it to convert currency.  It's possible that Australian businesses would not take American checks, but it would work anywhere a debit card would work. 

http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/banking_lending/checking_account

[Flyingkea]

I agree with the suggestion to use ozforex (www.ofx.com) as I use them between New Zealand and Australia, and they have been really good. Much better rates than the banks.

[alsoknownasDean]

I have been using http://www.knightsbridgefx.com/ from a few years, they are the best when it comes to providing great exchange rates for international transfers. Do use them and share your experience here with us.

You do realise this is a two year old thread, right?

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