Transferring Money from HSBC UK to Australia via 3rd Party

saver6969 on 03/09/2023 - 21:55
Last edited 04/09/2023 - 10:30 by 1 other user

Have a family member moving GBP20k from their HSBC UK account to Australia via OFX.

They did the same a couple of years ago but this time HSBC UK has refused to release the funds to OFX citing fraud risk. They actually called HSBC UK and sat on the phone for an hour only to be told there was nothing to do, then pushed HSBCs own FX rates which are AUD1k worse.

Was thinking they could try Wise, or setup a UK account with another bank? Anyone come across this before?

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  Hybroid on 03/09/2023 - 21:58

  +2

  Wise is the go-to recommendation. Use it all the time for GBP to AUD transfers.

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  stirlo on 04/09/2023 - 04:25

  How do they refuse to release the funds? Surely they're just making a regular bank transfer to the OFX account?

  Anyway Wise consistently has the best rates and I've not had an issue transferring with them (I bank with HSBC UK) so just open a wise account.

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  MrMcHairyHead on 04/09/2023 - 08:52

  Wise works fine

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  trapper on 04/09/2023 - 09:21

  Wise

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  netjock on 04/09/2023 - 11:25

  Wouldn't blame them. Fraud is wild in the UK at the moment. People losing a lot of money and banks have to reimburse them.

  I used to use CurrencyFair because you can nominate a rate because they run basically a peer to peer clearing house. Drip feed money in and then get it out when you need it but back then it was when you were getting like 0% interest for cash at the bank