Hi all. could any one please post some advice on getting the best exchange rate and the best way to transfer money from the uk.

your experiences would be very helpful.

Thanks Vince & kay :thumbs up:

We're using HIFX. Here's a link to their website:

http://www.hifx.co.uk/pservices/emigration.asp

Freinds of ours have used them and it all worked well.

http://www.ozforex.com.au/ is another one....couldn't recommend them though as I'm not sure who I'm going to use yet. If its any consolation our agent told us HIFX are pretty good so I'll probably go with them

We had loads of info gathered from the exhibition on this topic, my two front runners so to speak are:

HIFX - loads of people have recommended them and they seem very professional.
World Wide Currencies - ask for Richard Bass very nice man to deal with and will answer any questions you have www.worldwidecurrencies.com.

We are still unsure which one we will settle for as they both seem to offer the same services. I do have to call Richard as he wanted to talk to me about freezing the exchange rate for when we finally go to transfer our cash - I will let you know how this works afterwards.

One piece of advice that someone on a stall told me was to watch out for the bank charges. Sometimes they charge you a percentage for accepting your money. I did speak to a man from the Common Wealth Bank and he said they only charge a fee for transfers under £30,000 and there are no charges above this amount. I'm still going to look into this though, after all once the money has been transferred it would be too late to do anything about it.

Sasha :)

thank you all, so do you hifx for the excange rate and the Common Wealth Bank for the transfer or is it one or the other, do you know what i mean , i do hope so :loopy:

HIFX are a broker so they will buy dollars on the market for you so I guess you pay them £'s. They should then transfer it to a A$ bank account, this is were CB come into it...I'm sure this is how it works....

BTW, the charge for any transfer below £30k is £15 with CB. They are sending us an info pack. Will share details as soon as we get it

£15 is bugger all I thought he meant a percentage of the amount! HIFX have sent me a pack which I received today but I haven't had a chance to read through it properly yet.

Sasha :)

Another thing for anybody in or around London, don't bother going to visit the Commenwealth Bank as it is just a block of offices and I think you need an appointment/employee pass to get in the bloody building!!! After visiting our solicitor in Chelsea yesterday, we got a tube over to the City and looked a bit stupid walking in and straight back out then only getting an answer phone when we called from outside the building :angry: . We thought it might be a branch maybe for the Aussies who live in London....still we are leaving next month so even if we did look stupid we won't see them again!!!! :lol:

We let Commonwealth Bank transfer our cash for us. In our case it was under £30,000 which meant we paid the fee. The other side of this is that for under £30,000 we couldn't choose the exchange rate in any way, it's simply done at the prevailing rate on the day it gets transferred. I think if over this amount you had some leeway on rates... someone would need to confirm details though as Howard's off living it up at the bowling club tonight and he organised it all!

Elaine

Rebecca

I don't know if is this a bit late for you but we were given a contact name and number to call

Richard Hoffman 020 7710 3990

He is a good man to answer any questions apparently! I haven't tried him yet as we are still not that far ahead.

Sasha :)

It turns out when I was looking for that number I have already got a pack from the CWB and it does state £15 charge up to £30,000 over that is exept of this normal transfer charge.

You can do a forward exchange contract with them so you can secure a rate today for setlement at a later point i.e. when you've sold your house.

They exchange currency so can I ask the people who have used other companies ie HIFX why they didn't just use the common wealth bank is their exchange rate lower?

Sasha :)

Yes Sasha that was it - you can only do the forward exchange contract if you've got over £30,000 otherwise it's pot luck on the rate.

Elaine

Thanks everyone, I've taken all the comments on board and will look into them all. ;)

Elaine - Was there a reason why you didn't use one of the companies that specialise in exchange rates like the HIFX?


I'm confused now as if the Common Wealth bank transfer the money and exchange it for you with no or little charges why would anyone go with someone else like the HIFX unless you don't want to bank with the CWB? Is there something I'm missing here? Are the exchange rates better? Help! :help:

Sasha :)

Hi Sasha,

We used a broker for paying my uni fees and kids school fees, in advance before we left the UK. We got really cruddy service and because we needed a proof of payment to go with the visa they ended up charging us extra for a receipt!!

After that we just did a transfer from our UK account to our HSBC online account and the rate didn't end up that much different.

I think there is a risk by using a broker, in that if they go bankrupt whilst holding your dosh, you lose it!! But don't think it happens often.

we used foreign currency direct, would not recommend them.

Tracey :dance:

Brokers should segregate client money ie your money, into another account so if they go bankrupt you money is safe. I worked for Citigroup up until 2 weeks ago, but then again we were obviously much larger than these tiny brokers and that is the way we had to operate by law! I never worked in FX though so possibly it is different rules.....

Garfy ;)

Hi Garfy,

It was just somthing I read on Expats, so not sure about how accurate it was!!

You obviously know a bit more about how they are supposed to practice, so thanks for making that comment.

I guess everyone needs to ensure that the brokers they use are recomended to them and that they ask questions if they are unsure about anything.

Tracey :dance:

Garfy - I think they must have the same sort of rules as I know the info I got from the world currency lot stated that the money was kept separately - I think Barclays held it for them.

I got so fed up not knowing about this so I took my own advice and rang Richard Hoffman from the CWB in London. He was very nice and helpful sending me out loads of info and application forms. He said that sometimes the exchange rate may be different between the HIFX and CWB so it was best to shop around when looking at exchanging but usually there isn't much in it. I quizzed him as to how he thought the market was going, but I would be interested to what you think as well Garfy, he said that even though it is a crystal ball type thing if the interest rates do go up like speculated next week then the pound would be stronger and therefore better rates next week!

If you want to freeze a rate until you are ready to exchange then they prefer it to be at the stage where your contracts are about to exchange on a house or they like to have 10% up front. He said 18 months ago they were hitting 2.7 to 2.8 dollars per pound and they have slowly started to rise again so who knows what the rate will be when I'm ready to move.....risky business!

Sasha :)

He's right in that there is never a good time....I remember when the FX rate was high, I actually saw the GBP/A$ rate good above 3 for about 10 minutes a year or two ago!!! When we went to Sydney we have a rate of around 2.7 so we were lucky...

The Bank of England meet next week to decide interest rates, but I've not really had the chance to analyse anything since I left work...had a quick look at the interest rates and the GBP/A$ rate has crept up slightly since last month by about 5c so this might suggest people are looking to a rate increase at the BoE, but there may well have been some other factor influencing this move. Looking at what the Bank has done over this year and the back end of last year, they have gradually moved the rates up once every couple of months...last month they held at 4% so this might suggest they may raise by another quarter. Also, there are still concerns about the house prices and they are still going up around the country so again they might put up rates so mortgages are more expensive.....

However, someone on Expats said that the Oz government were raising there interest rates...I cannot find much on the web about this as the A$ isn't really a major player in the currency markets, only on BBC which was an article from December when Oz raised to 5.25% (the highest in the western world by the way)...I've looked at the Sydney morning herald and it said it looked like the $A might be strong this week, but it is due mainly because of Euro interest rates rather than anything that was happening in Oz!!! Odd but makes things even more confusing...

It is best to go with whatever they tell you really always trying to get other opinions from other experts as they this is all quite complicated and risky, as I say I never worked in the currency markets, the products I was involved in were based around interest rates, so a lot of the stuff that I've looked at above is really from courses that I've taken and from general knowledge. All I hope is that the rates make me a few thousand dollars better off!!!! :D

Garf ;)

It is really diificult to know whether or not to freeze the rate as I know we were looking at moving to Spain (Roy's father lives out there) to start up a business and ended up knocking it on the head as the Euro went so strong against the pound. It worked out from when we originally looked we had lost £30,000 due to the change in the interest rate alone - so we knocked it on the head, maybe if it was the right place for us we would have just gone for it and not have worried about the rate. It could have gone the other way though and if we had frozen it we would have lost alot of money.

I've been checking a few places now to see what is the difference in rates and they do vary slightly, so I will have to find a few more web addresses to check out then when the time comes go with the best rate.

We shall see what happens next week - but if you get some inside information Garf then let me in on it! :love29:

Sasha :)

Sasha - you asked why we went the Commonwealth Bank route.

I think it's a fairly simple answer, we weren't bringing the value of a house over here (we've rented it out and still own it) so were transferring a relatively small sum at £10,000 and of course you lose proportionately less on a smaller sum if you get the exchange rates at the wrong moment. Also a smaller sum meant the better deals were not available to us anyway.

Plus, everything got so frantic at the final stages that in the end we just went the easiest route to get it done and over with :rolleyes:

Elaine

Spent all morning talking to currency brokers and the Commonwealth bank...

Trying to establish the best way to transfer our money over to OZ.

I spoke to currency brokers who i have to say were very helpful... explaning everything to me... The problem being with them is that in order to transfer the money to OZ, i need an OZ bank account number.

Now i have already opened a 'london transfer account' with the CWB, but until you arrive in OZ and visit the branch, you're bank account can't be opened. So the way i understand it is that i'd have to wait till i get to Adelaide, open the bank account and then get the currency brokers to do their bit after...

The currency broker told me the rate that i would get today if i was in a position to do this today.... i also asked the CWB the same question and to be quite honest the difference was minimal, the currency broker had 2.3160 & CWB 2.3180, so the CWB was slightly better.

Of course it changes all the time, i know that.

I have made the decision that there is enough to do as it is, and the simpler i can make this move the better.

I will just get the CWB to transfer the money to australia before we leave. To me the less organisation's i have to deal with better.

lorraine

Lorraine - Just had a look at www.tranzfers.com and they are currently quoting 2.33 (based on a figure of £50,000 I just plucked out of the air!).