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By Will Ellis

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Last Updated on February 26, 2024

Edited by Adam Turner

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Fact checked and reviewed

Naturally, you need to find a reliable service whenever you need to send money overseas or even just receive funds from abroad. It’s typically more complicated to make and receive international transfers compared to just moving money within your own country.

Fortunately, though, there are plenty of banks within Australia that allow you to transfer money overseas relatively easily, including ANZ Bank, which is the main focus of this article.

ANZ actually provides you with a bunch of different services to help you make one of these transfers (as well as any kind of foreign currency transactions). Throughout this article, I’ll be walking you through the overall process — covering how to make an ANZ international money transfer as well as all the kinds of fees and intermediary services that might be involved.

Table of Contents:

• Understanding ANZ Bank: Your Gateway to International Payments
• Receiving Money From Overseas: The ANZ Approach
• Fees and Charges: What to Expect
• How to Ensure a Smooth Transaction
• FAQs

Understanding ANZ Bank: Your Gateway to International Payments 🤔️

To kick things off, it’s worth providing a little bit of background information about ANZ Bank, since this is the specific platform we’ll be using to send the money. Essentially, it’s known officially as the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, and you’d be hard-pressed not to have heard of it if you’re living in, as the name suggests, either Australia or New Zealand.

Ultimately, it’s one of the most well-established and popular banks within the two countries, and it provides a range of tools that generally make ANZ international money transfers a lot easier than some of its competitors — whether that’s simply by facilitating these kinds of transactions or giving you other options to manage any foreign currency transactions you might have.

So, whether you’re the one that’s sending or receiving the money, you’re able to do the lot with ANZ — but let’s focus more on the receiving aspect first.

Receiving Money From Overseas: The ANZ Approach 📝️

Obviously, the majority of people have some level of experience using money-transferring apps to send money to other people. But needing to receive money from other parts of the world is naturally a pretty common need, too — and it’s not just for businesses; expats or people with family or friends living abroad are all also probably going to need to do something like this at some point.

It’s not exactly a complicated process, either, so let’s walk through how you’re able to send and receive money internationally using your ANZ account.

ANZ International Transfers

If you’re sending money overseas, log into your ANZ online banking account, go to the ‘Payments’ section and click on ‘International Services’. Here you can register for International Services and set your daily “Pay Anyone” limit. Once this is set up, you’ll have the option to transfer money overseas from ANZ transaction account or credit card.

If you’re receiving money, the sender needs more than your BSB and Account Number. They also need your ANZ branch name and address, too, but this shouldn’t be difficult to find if you’ve got one of your credit card statements handy. Again, because this is also an international transfer, the seller’s going to need a SWIFT code, too, and for ANZ, this is ‘ANZBAU3M’.

Then, all the sender has to do is type in however much money they want to send you and initiate the international money transfer from their bank, allowing for all of the funds to be credited to your ANZ account pretty much as soon as the transaction has finished processing — fairly simple stuff.

ANZ Internet Banking

As I mentioned, there are a bunch of different tools that ANZ provides for making this whole process as simple as possible — not least its ‘Internet banking’ section.

If you click on this, you should be able to check out a bunch of details that are specific to your account, all without going into a branch or ringing the bank. Things like your account balance, monitoring any of the international payments that are on their way, and setting up any notifications for these transactions so you know when they arrive, too.

If you didn’t have a statement ready for the previous step, you’re also able to see your full account number and name here so all you need to do is give these to the sender so they’re able to transfer the money directly to your ANZ bank account.

Intermediary Banks

Now, this is slightly less common but, in certain cases, you might need to use some kind of intermediary bank when the sender is transferring money. Just like it sounds, these act as a form of intermediary or middleman between the sender’s bank and your ANZ Bank account.

So, if you’re told that you’re going to need to go down this route, ensure you’re providing all the relevant details for the intermediary bank — ANZ Bank will tell you what specific details you’ll need for this, so don’t worry if you don’t know what you’d need just yet.

Fees and Charges: What to Expect 🔎️

Although I’ve only spoken highly about ANZ Bank thus far in the article, it’s still worth being impartial and letting you know about all the potential fees and charges associated with its international transfers (although you’d expect this with any kind of similar service).

Furthermore, some of these fees will vary depending on the type of transaction and currency you’re using, but let’s break down some of the more common fees anyway:

Transfer Fees

As mentioned, expect ANZ Bank to charge you certain fees for receiving any international money transfers, whether they’re processing fees or just the flat rate it charges.

Again, the exact fee amount is going to change depending on the specific transaction being made, so get familiar with ANZ’s fee schedule or even just contact it directly for more detailed information.

Foreign Exchange Rates

Whenever you’re receiving foreign currency, ANZ Bank will convert the funds into your account’s base currency, presumably AUD.

While this is generally a pretty convenient service, the exchange rate used is naturally going to have an impact on the final amount you’ll end up receiving, so it’d be wise to stay in the loop about what the current exchange rates are before organising a transfer.

Intermediary Bank Charges

Again, although it’s slightly more rare, if there are any intermediary banks involved in the transfer process, they might also charge some kind of fee for their services. It’s hard to give a specific figure here as they can vary too, but they’ll typically be deducted from the transferred amount before it ever reaches your ANZ account.

Ultimately, just make sure you’ve read all of the terms and conditions of ANZ’s international money transfer services before you do a transfer so your seller knows how much money to send to compensate for all of the fees that impact the total amount you’ll receive.

How to Ensure a Smooth Transaction ➡️

It should be fairly clear by this point that receiving money from overseas is a fairly straightforward process with ANZ, but let’s run through a couple of factors to consider before we finish:

Notify ANZ Bank

Firstly, it can be worth notifying ANZ Bank that you’re expecting an international payment before you actually receive it, mainly just so you’re being proactive and reducing the likelihood or any kinds of concerns of hold-ups during the transfer process.

Communication With the Sender or Receiver

Lastly, always maintain open communication with the sender so they are absolutely sure they’ve got all your details correct and are generally aware of ANZ’s specific requirements for making international money transfers.

If you’re sending money overseas, ask the recipient whether their bank charges a transaction fee. For example, if you’re sending $1000 overseas to pay for a hotel stay, the hotel’s bank might deduct a $10 international transfer fee – which means the hotel will only receive $990 and thus may not confirm your booking. If their bank charges a $10 fee, you actually need to send $1010 to ensure the hotel receives $1000.

FAQs 📢️

Can I Receive Money From Any Country Using ANZ International Transfers?

There’s a pretty extensive list of countries you can accept payments from when using ANZ. That said, it’s definitely worth checking its website first so you can be sure the sender is in one of the eligible nations and that the payment is not just going to be immediately returned or delayed. Ensure the sender has all the information they need (like the SWIFT code, etc.), too, so the transfer can be facilitated.

What Happens If the Sender Provides Incorrect Account Details When They’re Making the Transaction to My ANZ Account?

There’s a pretty strong chance that the transfer is going to be either returned to the sender’s account or even just delayed until they’ve contacted their own bank to explain what’s happened. If the money has gone into someone else’s account, you might struggle to get it back. So, to get around this, just make sure you’re always double-checking the details first and confirm all account information so that you don’t run into any issues.

Can I Use ANZ Bank to Receive Money From Overseas, or Is It Just for Business Purposes?

Absolutely! Aside from being one of the simpler ways to transfer money from overseas, you’re also able to use ANZ Bank for personal and business purposes, so it’s also one of the most versatile options out there — whether you’re mainly just conducting business transactions or need to receive some funds from a family member or friend.

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