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Bank Overseas

Hi All,

Tossing up the idea of travelling and doing a working holiday - which requires me to have an overseas bank account which I can open on arrival. I'm thinking anywhere from 3 months to a year.

What I'm wondering is does anyone have any advice for transfering money from here to my own account there?

Do I need to take cash or is it possible to transfer the money from here to my new account over there?

Are there any accounts which are "worldwide"? i.e. HSBC are a worldwide bank, but once you leave Aus you're considered international?

Ideally what I want to do is leave my money in my accounts here and then transfer it when needed, but I didn't want to get hit with fee's everytime I wanted a few dollars - any advice anybody??

Tags: Bank, Fees, Holiday, Overseas, Travel, Working

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Permalink Reply by Karen on September 23, 2008 at 12:14pm

Hey DD, why are you required to have an o/s bank account? With banking these days you can access money easily via ATMs without it costing you too much - you just need to take out larger sums at a time to reduce transaction costs. It's a lot less of a hassle than opening an account, which usually requires a lot of paperwork, including proof of residence.

If you "have" to open an account, and manage to do it, then you can easily transfer funds from your Aussie bank account, no matter the bank. It doesn't have to be an international bank.

As for "worldwide accounts", they're all really worldwide because you can access money from pretty much any ATM, no matter the country. I've taken money out of ATMs in places like Ecuador, Burma, Morocco and a little town in Peru. I looked at HSBC once before because I thought that it would be an "international" account, but it doesn't work that way.

My advice would be to check out the fees involved in taking money out of ATMs using your Aussie account. I think it's only a few dollars, depending on your bank.

Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Bandwidth on September 23, 2008 at 1:21pm

Hello Diamond

What you can do is have an account here and use a Mastercard linked to the account that way you can use the card and have it repaid from that account.

When you go to dinner with a group of people you collect the money and pay with your Mastercard :-).

What my daughters do is keep local currency in local accounts eg put any money recieved in your new country in a local account, otherwise the exchange rate spread will keep getting you.

We tend to live out of a credit card, which gets paid off automatically at the end of the month, or a debit card. Not much cash

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Permalink Reply by Karen on September 23, 2008 at 8:00pm

The debit card (Visa or M/card) is not a bad idea at all while you're away, and Bandwidth's idea about collecting money and paying with your card is a good idea...so long as you don't get stiffed and actually collect all the money!

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Permalink Reply by Bandwidth on September 24, 2008 at 8:16am

I collect the money B4 I pay the bill

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Permalink Reply by Diamond Diggity on September 24, 2008 at 4:12pm

That Mastercard/Visa idea is a really good one.
The reason I am looking at an overseas account is I am hoping to work over there. Local employers only like to pay into local accounts - i.e. Pub work..
I have money here that I can live off while there but I don't want to be transferring it every time I need a few dollars if there is a currency change fee or buy/sell spread.

If it was just a holiday for a few weeks I wouldn't bother about the local account, but to work there and stay for 6 months to a year I think most employers would prefer a local account..
But I haven't yet been overseas for more than 1 week so I guess I'll learn even more once I'm there :)

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Permalink Reply by Annette Wilkins on October 4, 2008 at 8:12am

Hi,
My daughter has just returned from a 12 months working holiday .She mainly worked in Scotland.
My son is now doing the same.They both set up accounts with HSBC before they left Australia.
My daughters strongly advised her brother that it is necessary to have the UK account for your wages to be payed into and a lot easier to set up here in Australia. Make sure you have internet banking with your current bank before you go, you can do do all the transfering of funds via that account.
Hope this helps