Was somewhat taken aback at the spreads on forex when I went to bank my recent batch of Aussie dividend cheques at National Bank. Seems that recent pressures in the financial sector have led them to find new ways to turn in a profit...

When I first moved to NatBank (just prior to the ANZ acquisition) I was happy to note their spreads on forex seemed quite favourable at around 0.01 on the AUD:NZD from memory. After that, they seemed to widen a little bit and more recently seemed to be somewhere around 0.015. But at todays sell rate of .8285 and "buy cheque" rate of 0.8528 that's a surprise 0.0243 spread!

Anyone else noticed if other banks have been pulling the same move? Any suggestions for a better option without going custodial or setting up an Australian bank account?