# Banking and money transfer advice?



## ashleyjames473 (May 14, 2015)

Hi all. Hope this is the right place for this question - still getting used to this!

Hoping to move to Darwin by end of the year! What is the best bank to open an account with? Someone told me you can open your account here, what is the process for this?

Also, what's the best way to transfer money to the new account? 

Any help is appreciated!


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## voloyo (Jul 12, 2015)

Wow, this forum is really abandoned. 

NAB offers a bank account without fees. You should get one within the first 6 weeks of your stay for background check reasons or something.
I withdraw money for free from my foreign bank account at an ATM and then deposit it.


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## JessiF (Sep 3, 2015)

ashleyjames473 said:


> Hi all. Hope this is the right place for this question - still getting used to this!
> 
> Hoping to move to Darwin by end of the year! What is the best bank to open an account with? Someone told me you can open your account here, what is the process for this?
> 
> ...


ashleyjames473,

Sorry for delayed response. Maybe you should try contact Exchange4free. They help me with all my money transfers world wide


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## JanneKL (Jan 6, 2016)

I use transferwise to transfer money between the UK and Germany and my boyfriend uses it to transfer his money from Australia. I can highly recommend them!


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## JandE (Jul 17, 2015)

I just checked two rates a moment ago:

Transferwise
You Pay: GBP10,000
Recipient gets: AUD20,226.37

CurrencyOnline
You Pay: GBP10,000
Recipient gets: AUD20,220.40

Both pretty close.

I've always said never to use a normal bank for transfers, but I just saw that HSBC UK now offers "Send money online for just £4" And they give live FX rates online so you can check and compare. 

Maybe the banks are waking up to losing all this business to the money transfer companies..


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## JanneKL (Jan 6, 2016)

I usually transfer between 100 and 250 pounds per month and that costs me a fee of 1 pound. (My UK bank would charge me 10 pounds per transaction!) So I think it's a pretty good deal. I haven't checked any of the other services, but I guess they'll have similar fees?


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## JandE (Jul 17, 2015)

JanneKL said:


> I usually transfer between 100 and 250 pounds per month and that costs me a fee of 1 pound. (My UK bank would charge me 10 pounds per transaction!) So I think it's a pretty good deal. I haven't checked any of the other services, but I guess they'll have similar fees?


The actual fee does not matter on its own, it's the combination of fee and FX rate that counts.

However a £1 fee is very good. Who is that with ?

I just checked two others out of interest for £250 UK to Aus

Moneygram charge £25 fee (!!!) and give 1.946168 FX rate
OrbitRemit charge £5 fee and give 2.0239 FX rate
HSBC charge £4 fee (not sure of their FX rate)
Western Union Charge £2.90 fee and give 1.9948 FX rate


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## JanneKL (Jan 6, 2016)

The 1 pound fee is with tranferwise. However that it the minimum charge. If you transfer more money, the fee goes up. It's usually a certain percentage of the amount you transfer.


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