Best way to exchange £'s to $'s ?????????

[the fishers]

Hi everyone,

 

As exchange rates are so good at the moment, from £'s to Au$'s (something like 2.5), what's the best way to change up your savings????

 

We have heard of HiFX, does anyone know if your money is safe with them??

 

We are moving in Feb 2009 and don't have much money so a good exchange rate would really help.

 

Any advice welcome, many thanks

 

The Fishers

[Guest Ellie]

Hi everyone,

 

As exchange rates are so good at the moment, from £'s to Au$'s (something like 2.5), what's the best way to change up your savings????

 

We have heard of HiFX, does anyone know if your money is safe with them??

 

We are moving in Feb 2009 and don't have much money so a good exchange rate would really help.

 

Any advice welcome, many thanks

 

The Fishers

 

Hi There!

 

Hifix appear to be good. We paid our application fee through them and you get a better rate of exchange with them than with the banks. It was really easy to open an account and the transaction was done really quickly. You can send $ direct to banck account or have banker drafts. You can do all on internet once account is open and we even have an account open in OZ now. They call you and check everything going ok and you get a personal banker with a direct number and email. So far our experience has be fine. They also have offers at the moment where you can get deals with westpac, Anglo Pacific shipping who we have coming out to give us a free quote on 22nd October and they are offering discounts on Quantas flights.

 

Hope this helps.

[Guest EHumphreys]

Hi, we exchanged £ to $ on Friday afternoon with Commonwealth Banck London Branch and got a good rate of 2.57. Very easy, you open a transfer account with London (download application from web), I did this on Wednesday and sent it next day delivery, they rang me Thursday afternoon to give me my account number and I went and moved money from my bank to this account on Friday lunchtime and they had it later in the afternoon, all was done and dusted and in Adelaide account by end of Friday, easy!! They have a constantly changing rate throughout the day.

[bill]

Whatever you do, do it now! I just saw today that the Oz dollar is worth only about 37p. It's very unusual to see it slip so low against the pound. Of course, I remember a time a few years ago when it was 33p (3 dollars to the pound, wow!). Maybe someone can explain why the Oz dollar is becoming so much weaker when the experts say that our economy is one of the best placed to ride out the credit crunch! I have never understood why money markets work this way, as my bank manager will testify!

I have just edited this post to say that you should probably ignore my advice!

[the fishers]

thanks guys, HIFX are the route we have chosen........ x

[Guest LOOBYLOO]

thanks guys, HIFX are the route we have chosen........ x

We are using Hifx and from them we received application form from Westpac. Account opened online and details received within 8 days. Also got a special rate from Qantas with 40kg each. This is our experience and we are impressed so far. Good luck.

[Guest Alipally]

The reason why the $ has slipped so much against the £ over the last week is because the Australian Federal Bank cut the interest rate by 1%!! so it's now back down to 6% and it's set (so say the economists) to be cut down to around 4% before very much longer.....

 

The market then went into freefall when this was announced and at the Close of business on Friday the rate was $2.5975 to the £..... There are predictions that we'll see it as high as $2.9 to the £... If you have balls of steel.... wait! If you are risk averse then now's a good time to exchange for you.... Nobody knows what will happen for sure. All you can do is look at the market conditions and what has happened historically (eg what happened to the AUS$ after the last crash in 1987?) and make an educated guess on what might happen next, given the circumstances.

 

For now, I'm waiting....

[Diane]

Has anyone used Ozforex? Their rate was quite a lot higher than HiFX yesterday - and I wondered why so much disparity? (HiFx were quoting about 2.375, Ozforex 2.585 or something like that - could make quite a difference...) and currently HiFx showing 2.35740 and Ozforex 2.4496 a difference of about $6,000 on GBP50k

[Guest ems]

The reason why the $ has slipped so much against the £ over the last week is because the Australian Federal Bank cut the interest rate by 1%!! so it's now back down to 6% and it's set (so say the economists) to be cut down to around 4% before very much longer.....

 

The market then went into freefall when this was announced and at the Close of business on Friday the rate was $2.5975 to the £..... There are predictions that we'll see it as high as $2.9 to the £... If you have balls of steel.... wait! If you are risk averse then now's a good time to exchange for you.... Nobody knows what will happen for sure. All you can do is look at the market conditions and what has happened historically (eg what happened to the AUS$ after the last crash in 1987?) and make an educated guess on what might happen next, given the circumstances.

 

For now, I'm waiting....

 

Do i, don't i:goofy:. I suppose it was not that long ago that it was around the $2 mark. Maybe i'll stick with you Alipally on this one and take a gamble. Hopefully it'll work out for both of us. Thanks for the info.

[serena]

The reason why the $ has slipped so much against the £ over the last week is because the Australian Federal Bank cut the interest rate by 1%!! so it's now back down to 6% and it's set (so say the economists) to be cut down to around 4% before very much longer.....

 

The market then went into freefall when this was announced and at the Close of business on Friday the rate was $2.5975 to the £..... There are predictions that we'll see it as high as $2.9 to the £... If you have balls of steel.... wait! If you are risk averse then now's a good time to exchange for you.... Nobody knows what will happen for sure. All you can do is look at the market conditions and what has happened historically (eg what happened to the AUS$ after the last crash in 1987?) and make an educated guess on what might happen next, given the circumstances.

 

For now, I'm waiting....

Hi Allipally,

I looked at the FX exchange rate calculator two days ago, and the rate was 2.6...., yesterday, 2.57 and today 2.46. I called my bank (Lloyds) to see if we could buy some, they said it is virtually impossible to buy any from any bank in the UK, there just aren't any dollars here! Been a rush on them. Gulp. I read your post with interest, we have very little money to take with us, so it's scary to take a gamble, but we might have no choice. I think the only way for me to get some dollars is to follow the advice in the previous post, of opening an account with the Commonwealth Bank and transferring funds.

Exciting, or scary, don't know.

Good luck everyone!

[Andrew from Vista Financial]

Tough call to make really.

 

Yes there has been talk of another cut, possibly 1% but that was before the Government guarantees for Banks was revealed and todays announcement of the $10 Billion stimulation package.

 

If Banks start lending to each other again and this $10 BILL package kickstarts things then there will be no need for a cut.

 

Again crystal ball time!

 

 

Andy

[serena]

Tough call to make really.

 

Yes there has been talk of another cut, possibly 1% but that was before the Government guarantees for Banks was revealed and todays announcement of the $10 Billion stimulation package.

 

If Banks start lending to each other again and this $10 BILL package kickstarts things then there will be no need for a cut.

 

Again crystal ball time!

 

Andy

 

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the info. I think I should sort it out now. We've only a little money to bring with us (couldn't sell our house), so every penny counts! Any suggestions on how best to change our money to dollars? My bank (Lloyds) wasn't much help.

[Andrew from Vista Financial]

Hi Serena.

 

As said it is unknown at the moment what will happen so could go either way. Only you can make that decision.

 

Anyway there has been quite a few threads on here lately about this subject. Look under the Money & Finance section.

 

Quite a few foreign exchange companies out there. For example.

 

HiFX, MoneyCorp, Halo financial, Oz Forex ( plenty more!)

 

Hope this helps.

 

Andy

[serena]

Hi Serena.

 

As said it is unknown at the moment what will happen so could go either way. Only you can make that decision.

 

Anyway there has been quite a few threads on here lately about this subject. Look under the Money & Finance section.

 

Quite a few foreign exchange companies out there. For example.

 

HiFX, MoneyCorp, Halo financial, Oz Forex ( plenty more!)

 

Hope this helps.

 

Andy

Hi Andrew,

Wow you replied quickly! I'm trying to type whilst selling house contents on ebay, looking after 3 year old and ferrying tea and tools to hubby making repairs on our soon to be tennanted house (fingers crossed).

I looked briefly at money exchange companies, but we have not much at all to take with untill we sell our house. About £4k only. It seemed to me, for such a small amount there would be an easier way. What's your thinking?

Befuddled

[Guest vikkiann]

We transfered money with hifx last week and got 2.55. Don't take the rate that they offer on their website if you call them you'll probably get a higher rate, we did.

We have more to transfer but are just waiting at the moment to see what it does.

Good luck.

 

Vikki

[serena]

We transfered money with hifx last week and got 2.55. Don't take the rate that they offer on their website if you call them you'll probably get a higher rate, we did.

We have more to transfer but are just waiting at the moment to see what it does.

Good luck.

 

Vikki

Hi,

Thanks Vikki, good tip I like a good haggle. I've just this minute opened a Westpac Migrant bank account online. Only thing is, just as I finished it tells me that they will post all the bumpfh out to me in 15 days...............Won't be here. Oops.

[the fishers]

Hi Andrew,

Wow you replied quickly! I'm trying to type whilst selling house contents on ebay, looking after 3 year old and ferrying tea and tools to hubby making repairs on our soon to be tennanted house (fingers crossed).

I looked briefly at money exchange companies, but we have not much at all to take with untill we sell our house. About £4k only. It seemed to me, for such a small amount there would be an easier way. What's your thinking?

Befuddled

 

What about AUD travellers cheques???????? not sure if thats a good or bad option?

xx

[Guest LOOBYLOO]

Hi,

Thanks Vikki, good tip I like a good haggle. I've just this minute opened a Westpac Migrant bank account online. Only thing is, just as I finished it tells me that they will post all the bumpfh out to me in 15 days...............Won't be here. Oops.

We opened our online and had account details a week later....so you might still be there. Good luck.

[suzer]

No one uses Oz-Pay? We've been using that for years and it's well worth checking into. Good rates and low fees.