The main Australian banks are: Westpac, Suncorp, Commonwealth, ANZ, National Australian Bank, and St. George. Each one operates in a different way. The other surprise is that they all have different charges for credit cards, paying bills or using an ATM.

• There are two main types of bank accounts, Savings Accounts (pays interest) and Cheque Accounts (has a cheque book).

• To open a bank account, you will need to meet the 100 points system – the number of points varies for different ID documents, e.g. passport = 70 points. Check with the bank what is needed.

• If bringing money into Australia – amounts of more than AUD10,000 in cash must be reported to Australian custom officials. Keeping your money overseas does not exempt you from paying Australian tax on it either – so you have been warned that they might tax you (top rate of tax is 45%).

Find out more about where to get the best currency exchange rates which is very important if want to maximise your Australian Dollars for a deposit on the home loan when buying a new home in Australia.

Buying A Home – Home Loan Calculator

Home Loan Calculator to use a calculator to estimate what you size of a home loan you are able to borrow and what your home loan repayments will be.