ANZ International Transfers: Everything You Need To Know

Australia's second-largest bank, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) is a Melbourne-based financial services conglomerate that offers world-renowned commercial and retail banking services to more than nine million customers around the globe.

International money transfers are among the many services offered by ANZ, allowing clients to transfer Aussie dollar amounts less than AU$10,000.00 to 99 countries worldwide for a fixed fee of only AUD$9.00 per transfer — with this fee being waived completely on transfers to the Pacific Islands.

While these fees may appear attractive, by exploring ANZ's exchange rates, we found that the bank makes a healthy profit in hidden fees, which happen to be highest for Pacific Island countries and usually about 3% of the entire transfer amount for countries in general.

What Will ANZ Charge You?

To send an international money transfer abroad with ANZ, you'll need to login to your NetBank online banking profiles or the CommBank mobile app and instruct a bank transfer abroad. These transfers will be subject to the following fixed fees on each transaction:

• An AU$9.00 fee for transfers of under AU$10,000.00 from Australian dollars into a foreign currency;
• An AU$18.00 fee for transfers of under AU$10,000.00 into a foreign bank account in Australian dollars.

If you're sending money to a Pacific Island country — specifically to the Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Tonga, or Vanuatu — then your transfer will be free, unless you send it from an AUD account into a foreign bank account that's also denominated in AUD; in which case your fee will be AU$7.00 per transfer.

If you plan to send a transfer more than AU$10,000.00, you'll be subject to no fixed fees, unless that transfer is from an AUD account into a foreign bank account that's also denominated in AUD, in which case you'll pay an AU$18.00 fee. Another exception would be transferring AU$10,000.00 or more to one of the Pacific Islands countries listed above, which would see you charged an AU$7.00 fee per transfer.

International Money Transfers with ANZ: Beware the Hidden Fees

Over and above the fixed fees outlined above for bank transfers abroad, ANZ will also include a hidden fee into your international money transfer. These fees, known as exchange rate margins, are formed by offering a slightly worse exchange rate than the real one on the market, known as the mid-market exchange rate.

ANZ's exchange rate margins vary depending on the destination country and currency in question, and tend to hover anywhere between 2% and 6% of the total transfer amount, with the exchange rate margin for currency conversions into the Papua New Guinean kina soaring as high as 12% of the transfer amount!

The Costs Combined

When taken together, ANZ's exchange rate margins and fixed fees can constitute a large portion of your transfer amount, especially if you plan on sending a small amount to a foreign country.

For instance, if you were to send AU$300 to a family member in the Philippines, you would pay AU$11.71 (or 4.02% of your transfer amount) in hidden exchange rate margin fees with ANZ, and a further AU$9.00 in fixed fees. The total fee amount (AU$20.71) would therefore constitute nearly 7% of your transfer amount and leave your recipient with ₱9,891 at the time of writing.

Compare that to making the same transfer with Remitly, a global money transfer service based out of Seattle in the US and the cheapest service on our comparison engine at the time of writing. With Remitly, you'd pay no flat fees and get a better exchange rate than the mid-market rate by the equivalent of AU$23.42. By contrast, this would get your family member ₱11,469 — nearly 16% more than they'd have gotten were you to have used ANZ.

To get a clearer picture of the exact costs you can expect when sending an international money transfer with ANZ, take a look at the fee breakdown below (as of 26/11/2020 at 13:00 +01:00 GMT):

ANZ International Transfers: Other Fees to Anticipate

After paying the unavoidable transaction and exchange rate margin fees when sending abroad with ANZ, you may find yourself subject to further fees still. Depending on your individual circumstances, these additional fees might include:

• An AU$30.00 service fee for in-branch transfers from Australian dollars into a foreign currency;
• An AU$25.00 cancellation fee if you wish your transfer to be cancelled and returned before it arrives;
• An AU$25.00 investigation fee if you'd like to trace the status of your transfer;
• An AU$25.00 amendment fee if you wish to change the details of your transfer before it arrives;
• A correspondent bank fee (typically ranging between AU$10 and AU$100) if your bank transfer cannot be made directly to your beneficiary's bank.

Is ANZ Right for Your International Transfer?

All things considered, using a world-class bank such as ANZ to make your next international money transfer could make sense for you if you're already a client who values the security on offer and doesn’t mind paying slightly higher fees.

However, if you're concerned with keeping the costs down, ANZ leaves a lot to be desired, as you'll not only be subject to an already fairly large flat fee of AU$9.00 per transfer, but also to the hidden exchange rate margin, which adds another 4 to 5% onto the transfer.

For this reason, if keeping costs low is important to you, we'd recommend that you run a search on Monito's comparison engine to explore your options in real-time on the many low-cost exchange rate providers available on the market. To get a better picture of how much you could be saving with these services compared to ANZ, take a look at how a few of them compare on an AU$250 transfer to India in the table below (as of 26/11/2020 at 12:00 +01:00 GMT):