Quote Originally Posted by Snoopy View Post
Wait there is more, it gets worse. Before I go on I should add that I respect that Westpac is a private business and they have the right to choose what kind of business they do and with whom.

Initially Westpac said they would cash my cheque but they would have to courier it overseas to be cashed at a cost of $100. I guess they thought that by putting an outrageous price on the transaction they would put me off. I reluctantly agreed to this. However they changed their mind when they found out my 'salary' was not being direct credited into my account. I have been self employed for over twenty years, so I have no 'salary'. I also pointed out that I had deposited several thousand dollars into my account that month and tens of thousands over the year. I did all my NZ business through that account. I told them the IRD recognised this money as income and so should they. However, the teller was very adamant that this money did not count as income because it was not a 'salary'.

Now I can't influence any unwritten policy on how Westpac wants to do business. But I do object to them changing rules 'on the fly' - after I agreed to cash a cheque at an outrageous price. Why make a false offer to me to cash up a cheque front me if they had no intention of ever going through with it? I told them I would leave the bank if they didn't want to do business with me and they said fine go ahead. I was flabbergasted after being with the bank for over twenty five years that they were prepared to lose my custom so easily.

All I could think was that they had a cookie cutter pattern of customer they wanted to deal with and I no longer fitted that cookie cutter pattern. They wanted someone with a big mortgage (mine was paid off) who spent up big on their credit card (I cancelled my credit card with them after it inexplicably failed while I was on a trip to England). No explanation was ever forthcoming as to why my Westpac credit card suddenly stopped working while overseas. Fortunately I had another card from a different bank or my trip would have ended in chaos!

As I no longer fitted that cookie cutter profile (the teller confirmed with the manager on site that they didn't want to transact with me so it wasn't just a rogue teller), and I had asked to do something 'difficult', (cash an overseas cheque), it was good bye! Of course the teller didn't know I was a Westpac shareholder as well. Not sure if this was a signal to sell my Westpac shares, because they were being very obviously un-co-operative with a long standing customer, or buy more because they were stopping costly unprofitable transactions across the board!

SNOOPY
I should add that I too had difficulties depositing foreign cheques with BNZ and it's pretty safe to say all banks are the same. In addressing to the original post's problem of issuing term deposits abroad, I would say there are 2 major factors that changed everything:

1) The CRS "Common Reporting Standard" put out by the OECD, for which all banks in NZ and Australia (and some 110+ nations around the world) had change the playing field in international banking. It meant no bank could willingly conduct international transactions without tax scrutiny. If you mentioned you were a NZ citizen and had a NZ address to the Australian bank branch, well you opened up a can of worms because they have to verify your tax status. After all the whole intent for CRS came about from the media exposure of the Panama Papers and tax free havens, rich elites hiding money in secret bank accounts around the world etc. So now that game has come to an end and even places like Switzerland had to cave into CRS so their historic bank secrecy laws no longer apply.

2) The FMA "Financial Market's Authority" of NZ. They are the regulatory framework that all banks and brokers in NZ must be licensed to and authorised in order to have a business in NZ. If the overseas foreign bank or broker is not licensed by the FMA, AND they are serving clients that live in NZ (again, mentioning you have an overseas address = can of worms), then according to NZ law, they are breaking the LAW! This covers areas such as the AML "Anti Money Laundering Act" which on any transaction over $10,000 - the banks much go through more checks and hoops to ensure the transaction is legit from clear sources, and in the case with the Australian banking, to ensure the person wanting the transaction can be verified. Using a foreign address generally means 'no' from the bank teller's point of view. Even the bank manager would not be wrong to be hesitant. AML is met by taking your passport ID or DL and it's forwarded to the police for background checks.

@ Snoopy: I think the key trouble why Westpac mislead you is that they won't simply "cash" a foreign cheque in one go. All my foreign cheques I deal with through BNZ are deposited into their respected foreign currency and there's a 2 or 3 week stand down period before those funds could be drawn out. It's shown on their computer screen on the posted date and the cleared date with funds showing respectively how much I can withdraw before the cleared date. Also I never try to exchange rate the foreign cheque on the spot, as you say, the rate fluctuates so much throughout the day that it leaves them with this excuse not to do so. So, I think if you did things in 1 step at a time, the end result would be no problem.

You mentioned the fees? Well BNZ for USD cheque deposits going into USD is $9 USD (or $15 NZD PER CHEQUE!) It's horrendous and fortunately, i've been able to structure our deposits outside of NZ. A good place to start is with the US where the banks there are not part of the CRS and certainly don't give a rats ass about NZ's FMA. Virtually all the US banks provide 'mobile self check deposits' meaning you use a smartphone and with their banking app, you take a photo of the front and back of the chq (after endorsing), type in the amount and click deposit and voila! FREE!!! You wait a week to see if it's cleared, no fees, no bank teller to give you the run around, etc. I'm certain BNZ does something similar AFTER I present them with foreign cheques.

Totally agree, I too don't fit into the bank's 'cookie cutter' type of customer. The sad part is even if I wanted to be like the typical customer in NZ, I could not be because of how I structured my investments.