Foreign Exchange

Introduction

There are few communities more knowledgeable and conversant about foreign exchange than expatriates.  Even long term expatriates habitually translate local prices into Australian dollars, or some other reference currency, even after years spent in a host country.   

Since a large part of an expatriates earnings, expenditure and savings are likely to be in a foreign currency, its deserves serious attention throughout an expatriate assignment, and not just when a large repatriation of funds is scheduled. 

Firstly, however, you may wish to put foreign exchange earnings into a financial planning context. For example, if you plan to retire overseas rather than return to Australia, or you believe that holding some foreign assets provides a hedge against a declining Australian dollar, then you may have a different approach to the repatriation of earnings or assets to Australia.

The following sections do not concentrate on the investment issues surrounding foreign exchange, but on some of the transactional issues and (sometimes substantial) costs that expatriates will encounter on transfers, and a few of the mechanisms that can be used to provide some certainty into the future about the value of an international transfer.

These sections largely presume that an expatriate will be in a country where there are no prohibitions or restrictions on (hard) currency repatriations – these are still common in developing countries and can be mind-numbingly complicated.  You will often need the help of your employing company or local professionals in addressing these restrictions in any sensible fashion.

The Inquiry forms provided on these pages direct queries to Exfin's foreign exchange service provider: Ozforex.com.au. The Ozforex site provides a very wide range of tools - including access to historical rates for currencies going back to 1990, allowing users to put current rates in a longer term context (see Long Term Charts on home page).

Complete the Foreign Exchange inquiry form