If you’re from the UK and you’re about to embark on a long stint away from home – backpacking, going around the world, working abroad, whatever – then think carefully about your banking arrangements. You could be about to lose a lot of cash that you could actually save.
Most UK banks charge money for withdrawing cash from ATMs overseas – my original bank, Lloyds TSB, charged me £1.50 per withdrawal, regardless of the amount. This mounts up quickly. In my the two years I was abroad before I returned to the UK so see family and friends, I must have wasted a couple of hundred pounds because of Lloyds’ charges. Needless to say, that could have been used for much better purposes on budget travel in exotic lands rather than being skimmed off the top of my bank account.
However, there is a simple solution: open a bank account with the Nationwide Building Society. They do not charge at all for withdrawals from any ATM machine anywhere in the world. I’ve been using my Nationwide account to withdraw money over the last 9 months whilst travelling in Thailand and have had no problems – and no charges, either. Nationwide’s online banking services are a little bit clumsy but they’re managable once you get used to them. I found their application procedure painless. I was in and out of the branch to set up an account within half an hour, and the staff were friendly and knew their stuff. Voila: a swift way to save yourself a lot of cash to help your travelling go further.
NB: If you plan to work in Australia with a working holiday visa, it’s worth bearing in mind that the Aussie banking system is different to the UK. Banks there charge you for just about every service they offer – so while you will need an Oz bank account to pay in your hard-earned cash, you might want to minimise using it to keep charges down.
More on free banking:
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