Drawing Australian pension in Ireland

T

Tedness

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Hello everyone. I hope I am posting this in the correct section.

I’m posting this on behalf of a relative because he’s not Internet savvy.

He is Irish born and moved to Australia in the 70s, where he obtained citizenship, worked and paid taxes for decades.

He has now retired and moved back to Ireland. However, his pension is based in Australia and paid in Australian dollars into an Australian bank account. Any time he draws money from this, he pays substantial fees for converting it from Australian dollars to euro.
The only thing I could think of trying to avoid charges was Revolut, but even they charge fees to convert from Australian dollar to euro.

I’m wondering if there is a Better way for him to do this, that would reduce or even remove the fees, or is it a case that no matter what he does he will have to pay a fee to convert from Australian dollar to Euro?

Thanks.
 
Currency fees are inevitable.

Fintechs offer lower fees in general.

Don’t forget to remind him that he may have an Irish tax liability on his AUS pension income
 
Btw he may be better off opening an account with a fintech as an Irish resident. He can have EUR and AUS wallets and have pension paid into the AUS one. He can transfer at low cost into the EUR wallet and spend from that

It will save on expense of account in Australia. Long run an Australian bank may not want even him as a customer if he’s non-resident and only has pension income.

Above plan will only work if he is proficient with a smartphone or tablet, or has someone trustworthy to guide him.
 
If he has online access to his Australian bank account, he could sign up with wise.com and use that to transfer the money from his Australian bank account to his existing Irish bank account. I've used it to transfer money from Ireland to Asia and the exchange rate is very good and the fees are low.

Wise is not a bank account per se. Just a service. He logs into Wise and says that he wants to transfer, say AUD 2,000 to his Irish account and provides Wise with the IBAN/BIC of the Irish account. Wise then gives him a reference number and account details for Wise Australia. He logs into his Australian account and transfers the AUD 2,000 to the Wise Australia account, using the reference number. As it's a local transfer, no exchange rate or mad fees. Wise Australia theoretically transfer the money to Wise Europe (Belgium I believe). And from there it's a Eurozone transfer to his Irish account.

Edit: I would be cautious with Revolut as a main bank account due to the risk of scams.
 
Thank you, very helpful. I will check out Wise for him and explain it to him.

I didn’t realise Revolut was susceptible to scams?
 
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