The National Bank

The National Bank of New Zealand have some advice to new residents or people planning to emmigrate to New Zealand. You can apply for a bank account online so that everything is set up ready for your arrival. This is a great idea since you will want to have an account available to transfer any funds which may be supporting your residency application.

Other banks offer similar services, these include

• The Bank of New Zealand
• The ASB Bank
• The National Bank

however none of them specifically offer help from overseas like National Bank. You may wish to at least use National Bank to begin with, you can always change your mind at a later stage when you have decided which one offers the best scale of charges.

All New Zealand banks charge, usually on a per transaction basis. Some allow mortgage customers to have 'free' or preferential banking. We benefitted from this via the BNZ. ASB bank also offer free banking to clients with a high balance. Typically this is anything over $5000.