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Moving Your Money From New Zealand To Australia

Open an Australian bank account from NZ and get the best exchange rate you can when converting your New Zealand Dollars to Australian Dollars. Here's how.

Get The Best Exchange Rate

The goal here is simple: to get as many Australian dollars for your New Zealand dollars as possible. This is how we did it, and it worked out well for us:

• Please, please do not take large sums of cash or travellers' cheques! You are literally wasting money by doing so. The best way to convert anything other than the smallest sums of money is to send it via telegraphic transfer (TT).
• Open an Australian bank account before leaving New Zealand so that you can minimise the amount of cash you need to take with you. We show you how to do this below.
• Don't use a bank to convert your money! Use a specialist foreign exchange company to get a better exchange rate and to avoid high bank fees. We also cover this below.

Of course, you can wait until you get to Australia before opening an account. This will be easier if you prefer a bank that doesn't allow you to open an account online from New Zealand. You can still use the advice below about converting your New Zealand dollars to Australian dollars as it isn't dependent on opening an account before you leave New Zealand.

Opening An Australian Bank Account Before You Leave New Zealand

The key criteria here are the ease with which you can open a new account without actually being in Australia, and minimising the fees associated with getting your newly converted Australian dollars into your account. You can always switch banks once you become familiar with the great and not-so-great aspects of the one you choose first!

When it comes to opening a new account without actually being in Australia, there seems to be quite a big difference between the banks. Some will let you do it pretty much all online, others want you to fill out paper forms and mail them, and yet others don't want to know you until you are actually in Australia. Being internet junkies, we preferred the banks who let you do it all online. Paper forms are so 2001!

Commonwealth Bank

Open an Account

To open an account(s) with Commonwealth Bank, simply complete the following form and someone from the bank will contact you to complete the account opening process. You can do this right now - you don't have to be in Australia.

Your information is sent only to the Commonwealth Bank - it is not stored by us or made available to anyone else.

Your full name

Contact phone number

Start with your country code, e.g. +64 for New Zealand.

Email address

Date of birth (dd/mm/yyyy)

This is required for ID purposes.

Approximate arrival date

City you are moving to

Note: If you open an account with CBA using this form we may receive a small commission that helps cover our running costs. Thanks for your support!

Great! Your details have been sent to a Commonwealth Bank account manager and they will be in touch soon (usually within 24 hours).

We chose to open accounts with the Commonwealth Bank, because their account opening process is simple, their online banking is widely regarded to be the best of any bank in Australia, they offer a comprehensive range of banking services, and their fees are comparable to the other major banks.

Since creating this site, we've partnered with the Commonwealth Bank to make it very simple for you to open an account(s) with them before leaving New Zealand. All you have to do is complete the form in the box to the right and someone from the bank will contact you to complete the account opening process.

Here's what to do and what to expect:

1. Complete the simple form in the box to the right.
2. Someone from the Commonwealth Bank will contact you to help you set up the right account(s) for you, usually within 24 hours (please allow for the time difference between Australia and New Zealand and expect it to take longer if you complete the form over the weekend).
3. Expect your account to be opened within 48 hours. Once your account is opened, you can use it to deposit funds but you cannot withdraw any funds until you have presented ID at a branch after your arrival in Australia. For our purposes of using the bank account as somewhere to send our Australian dollars, this was all we needed.

If you are opening a joint account, be aware that both of you will need to go into a branch and present ID when you arrive before you can make payments from it etc.

ANZ Bank

The ANZ also has a convenient online application process for people moving to Australia. Visit this moving to Australia page of their web site for more information and to apply online. As with the Commonwealth Bank process, you need to present your ID at a branch in Australia before you can withdraw funds from the account.

If you have personally opened an account with the ANZ this way before leaving NZ, please email us to let us know how it went and we will update this guide to make it more useful to those who prefer to bank with the ANZ.

NAB - National Australia Bank

The NAB also offers an online bank account application process for you to open a bank account with them before you arrive in Australia.

Westpac

For reasons that aren't obvious, Westpac Australia does not currently allow New Zealanders to open an account from NZ before arriving in Australia. That's terrific customer service, particularly when you consider that they used to provide this. Our advice? Just go to a bank that at least pretends to want you!

Please email us if you do manage to open an account with Westpac before leaving New Zealand and we will share your experiences here.

Converting Your Money To Australian Dollars

Surprisingly few people seem to realise that there is quite a lot of choice when converting money into another currency. Many people just go with their first instinct - to use a bank. Don't do that! Unless you happen to be a very important customer, you will not get a good deal from your bank. Typically they will give you a pretty bad rate, and then charge you a commission on top of that!

The reason you want a bank account before converting your money is to avoid dealing with cash. Conversion rates for cash are often much worse than when dealing with electronic funds. For this reason, you should aim to convert as little physical cash as possible and send the converted funds directly to your new bank account.

Depending on how much money you are converting, you can save yourself hundreds, or even thousands of dollars by using a specialist foreign exchange company. We used Currency Online, a New Zealand based specialist foreign exchange company, because we could get a much better rate, we paid no commission, and we could do everything online. Just by choosing to use Currency Online instead of a bank, we saved a few hundred dollars. There are other specialist providers too, but we chose Currency Online because of the added convenience of being able to do it all online.

Here's the basic process we went through to convert our money, once we had our Aussie bank account opened:

1. Open an account with Currency Online. It doesn't cost a thing, and you don't need to do regular transactions with them. You'll need to send electronic copies of your ID to complete the process. Just scan or take a photo of your passport (or drivers license, etc) and email them as per the instructions they give you.
2. Once your account is open, log in and create yourself as the receiver of the Australian funds (this is referred to as creating a beneficiary). Use your new Aussie bank account details to have the Australian dollars paid directly into your account.
3. Convert your money online or over the phone. You can do this at any time between 7:30AM Monday and midnight Friday (New Zealand time). Pay the New Zealand dollars you are converting into the Currency Online bank account (instructions are given on the confirmation of your currency exchange contract). You can pay the NZ dollars online if you have online banking, or simply credit the Currency Online account using phone banking or at a branch if you don't.
4. Your Australian dollars will appear in your bank account, less any telegraphic transfer (TT) fees the bank has charged you to receive the funds.

If you need any help at any stage throughout the process, call them toll free on 0508 399 399. Chrissy is particularly helpful.

That's really all there is to it. You might have just saved yourself enough to cover one weeks rent in your new place in Australia, just by not using your bank!

Still have questions about moving your money to Australia? Check out our discussion forum where you can ask questions that can be answered by us and other readers.

Read more about moving to Australia in the full How To Move To Australia Guide, or check out our discussion forum to find more help with planning your move.