Money query?

Hi Everyone, I am about to put in my ITA, any day now!

I have just opened my ASB account and I was wondering, with the ?15 charge to put money into my account, is it worth cashing in my ISA now to put into my ASB account or wait until I get there to put it into a 7% savings account instead. WOuld it help with the immigration process to have a large sum already waiting for me in NZ????

thanks

Katie

Hi Katiej35,

I unfortunately can't help you with your question, but am interested to know why there is a charge of $15 to put money into an account?

Is this normal for NZ Banks?

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Julian

charge is because I am currently in UK I have to have a holding account in London, I put my money into here and once here they send it to NZ for me and change it to $ on the way

the lady said as I am not looking to go to NZ until end Jan beg Feb then I could open the 7% saving account from here in UK

Thanks Katiej35,

That sheds some light on the situation.

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Julian

Katie, are you using a bank to transfer your money?

Yeah when I opened my ASB account, at the NZ Expo in London, they said they open a holding account here in London and I put my money into there then they transfer it and exchange it to $ into my NZ account. Everytime I move money there is a ?15 charge so have to move large chunks to make it count !

Yeah moneycorp charge ?15 transfer fee, think it's fairly standard. Not sure it would help your application to have money sitting there already other than to say to case offer, I'm going to survive on this money til I get a job blahblah.

Katie

I have a loathing for the banking industry generally.

I mean if you have an overdraft they write to you every month and tell you that you have their money, but we dont write to them every month when we are in credit and tell them they have our money (and we dont charge them ?10 per letter either!)

Back to the post. I would be careful of what ASB will do when they exchange your ? to $. If they think they have your custom ?"in the bag" they may try to fib you off with "tourist rate" rather than a much more competative "commercial rate". Call me paranoid - but the big banking corps didnt make their money with nice smiles and giving away free lollies at expos!

Westpac and BNZ allow 2 free deposits into an account in NZ, and you control who exchanges your ? and when you deposit.

I would be a fool to offer you advice about your ISA and whether the current exchange rate is good enough to cash it in and transfer. Yes the ?/$ is good at the moment - and some analysts, Natty included, think that it may still rise "a bit", but its your choice at the end of the day. I know some people are happy enough to exchange when the rate hits a certain threshold & their figures stack in on the NAZ sied with regard to houses/cars/savings etc.

My only advice would be to watch what ASB are doing with your ?! Keep an eye on the rates offerd by HIFX & on the bbc money website to see if ASB are sharking you.

Good Luck


Nick

We used the ASB (or Commonwealth Bank of Australia as they also call themselves) in London to transfer our monies to NZ.

It may be that we tranferred large sums (GBP50,000plus) as there was no GBP15.00 charge. In fact, we were surprised to get a statement recently showing that we had earned quite a bit of interest. We were also given competitive rates of exchange - but then again it may be because we were sending over larger sums.

Personally, I would not cash in my ISA until I knew I had approval and was certainly moving to NZ. I'm afraid I don't think sending money over to NZ is going to have any effect on your immigration process.

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thanks everyone for the opinions, certainly food for thought