bypass "migrant banking"?

[sophiedb]

how do

Hubby is rather keen to try the following scenario:

• get all our house sale money placed into our bog standard Barclays account (nicely internet accessible)
• get money recurrencied (yes that is a word ) by forex!co
• money lands in his old ASB account
• change this into a joint account when we get there

Given that I trust him not to run off with all our worldly £$£$£, are we likely to encounter any problems with this scenario?

My first thought is that I don't know how many £££ I would be able to send to forex!co at any one time... hmm... must check this out.

The other is that we had a hell of a time getting him added to my old account when we first got back from Australia. Seriously, it took *ages* because he didn't have any proof of address for a few weeks.

He tells me that NZ banks aren't like that, but he hasn't been there for more than holidays for 11 years! (feeling guilty about not trusting husband, but am bitter old cynic when it comes to getting money out of banks..)

Comments and hole picking welcomed!

[victoria24]

you would fall outside the bank guarantee if you have a big chunk in 1 institution. especially with yesterdays stock plummett, i would consider spreading it out.

[IanW99]

Some comments...

You may not be able to send all the funds in one go via a Forex company depending on your credit limit with them.

Would be worth trying to send a small amount first i.e. to confirm that all the account details are set up correctly. It can be amazingly worrying to transfer every penny you have to find out that no bank has your money and worse still no one knows where it is.

Using the migrant banking section means that your funds remain in your own account all the time and should there be any problems then you only have to deal with two companies i.e. your UK bank and your NZ bank.

No hole picking though, for me, if I was just doing one or two transactions then I would just use the migrant banking, certainly the exchange rate we got was as good as any offered by a forex co.

But you certainly don't need to use migrant banking and if you have already setup the forex account then it should work just as well.

Ian

[NikT]

Yup.

That's pretty much what we did.
Except for the joint account bit, we just opened a new a/c.

Forex are easy to deal with.
Not sure about the upper limit transfer. Lower limit £1K

(still some money in UK to transfer when the damn rate goes up )

Nick.

[jubjub]

Only prob I can see is the amount you can move by internet banking, think our limit was 10,000 pounds at once. So maybe check how that would work fees wise via forex...

Whereas migrant banking shifted the lot for one fee.

Apart from that, I reckon it should be fine.

[sophiedb]

Only prob I can see is the amount you can move by internet banking, think our limit was 10,000 pounds at once. So maybe check how that would work fees wise via forex...

Yep, just checked - I can only transfer £10k per day via online banking. Anything more needs me to be present at a branch

[Flutterby]

i don't know about the forex and transfer stuff but we walked into a bank and opened an account on the spot without needing any proof of address, so you may even be able to get added to his account before you move with just a simple phone call, or failing that just by dropping into the bank on arrival.
I'm not sure if the IRD number will cause any issues when putting big chunks of money into your account? that takes a couple of weeks to aquire.

[Chiba]

Why don't you just bank it in Sterling with ASB?

[Jacqi B]

i don't know about the forex and transfer stuff but we walked into a bank and opened an account on the spot without needing any proof of address,

Depends where you go.
We walked into Westpac to enquire about opening an account.
"You need proof of address" they said.
"But we're in a hotel" I replied "we have our passports, with our visas, you can see them"
"No, we need proof of address, the hotel will do."
"We booked it on the internet"
"well just ask the reception desk to print you a receipt then bring that in"

We thought this was ridiculous. If they'll accept a six night stay in a hotel but still want proof, they did not seem to be the kind of people I wanted to be dealing with. And If we'd been staying with friends? would they have accepted a 'note from my mate'?

So we crossed the road to ANZ
"We want to open an account" we said "but we don't have proof of address, we are staying in a hotel"
"do you have picture ID?" they asked.
"yes, passports with residents visas"
"that's fine" they said and set it up for us then and there, complete with setting up telephone banking and internet banking with passwords etc while we were there. And said we did not need to put money in straight away either (although we put some in anyway).
We evenhad the choice of being given EFTPOS cards then and there or having ones with our names on sent to us.

[Ian 5859]

I believe that I right in thinking, that if you are 'only' on a work permit, the NZ Government's bank deposit scheme does not apply and your money it at risk no matter how much you bring.

That said, if you have PR it is covered.

Just one of the little pieces of discrimination that the NZ government allows some of us to share.