Under current government legislation, you need to provide personal identification up to the value of 100 points when opening any account (including loan accounts), or when becoming signatories to accounts.
A full list can be seen at:
New arrivals can sometime open accounts with special identification requirements, if done within a short time of arrival.
Many Australian Banks have account keeping fees, commonly $5 per month, although some are Free, it is worth shopping around.
HSBC is a common account for many newly arrived British, as it can provide FREE banking, and a decent interest rate on deposits.
This account is designed for Internet banking as there are very few HSBC branches around, although you can however make deposits and withdrawals at any Post Office, Free of Charge, and, as from 3 March 2009, HSBC will allow unlimited FREE withdrawals at any of the HSBC or 1,800 Westpac branded ATMs nationally. (this does NOT include St George ATM’s)
The normal fee for ATM transactions, with almost every other bank, is $1.50 to $2 per transaction.
Note: HSBC’s 5 Free ‘any other bank’ ATM transactions per month that used to be allowed without incurring ATM transaction fees, was removed under the ATM Reform on March 3rd 2009.
Most ATM transactions will incur fees, unless you ONLY use an ATM that belongs to your bank.
The fee that you are charged when you use an ATM that is not operated by your own bank is called a “Foreign Transaction Fee”, or “Other bank ATM Fee”.
Transaction fees may be charged on “Balance Enquiry”, “Withdrawal” and “Deposits”.
As from March 2009, most of these fees will be shown on the ATM screen, before you choose to finalise the transaction thereby allowing you to abort, if you do not wish to pay the fee. Some banks have agreements with other banks, so that they do NOT get charged a “Foreign Transaction Fee”. Examples of these are:
Following the RBA involvement, bank customers must now, from March 3rd, 2009, be notified of the charges before making a transaction at another bank’s ATM, and then given the opportunity to opt out of the transaction without being charged.
However, it appears that some banks, including NAB, Westpac, St George and ANZ have all announced smaller extra fees which will NOT be shown on the ATM screen at the time of the transaction.
Some of the above banks may have recently decided not to impose these fees. It would be best to double check, as things are changing rapidly at the moment.
Only the fee being charged by the ATM operator will be shown, at the time of the transaction, on the ATM screen.
An example of these fees as at March 3rd 2009 was:
Balance Withdrawal ATM Direct Charges
Enquiry Fee Institution
$2.00 $2.00 ANZ
$- -.- $2.00 Bank Of Queensland
$1.00 $2.00 Bankwest
$2.00 $2.00 Commonwealth Bank
$2.00 $2.00 Heritage
$0.50 $1.50 nab
$- -.- $1.75 RediATM
$2.00 $2.00 St George
$0.80 $2.00 Suncorp
$2.00 $2.00 Westpac
This was sourced from a pdf file at :
Be aware of Bank advertising that may lead you to believe that you will pay nothing….
I have just seen one bank advertising “No charge for ‘bank name’ customers when they use “Foreign ATMs”13 March 2009”.
However, further down in smaller print, it does say: “customers will not be charged “disloyalty fees” for using “Foreign ATMs”, although they could still be charged a “Direct Charge” by the ATM operator”
AUSTRALIAN BANKS with Facilities in the UK to assist in opening an Australian account
AUSTRALIAN BANKS with special facilities for opening an Australian account from the UK
Most of these accounts will require you to visit the branch that you opened the account at, to identify yourself and activate the new account.
Identification, mainly during the first 6 weeks, normally consists of your Passport, and proof of an Australian address. After this initial period, you will need more forms of Identification.
St George and Westpac customers can each use the others ATM’s, from 1st Dec 2008, following the merger of these two banks.
(Normally higher interest rates but with less facilities)
Some Savings accounts often have promotional interest rates that revert to the standard rate after a short period; for example:
Take account of these, and note the ending dates of the promo period
Credit Unions:
