Foreign cheques

If you receive a foreign currency cheque, you’ll need to contact the cheque issuer and arrange to receive your overseas payments electronically, with an international money transfer. This is a faster, more secure way to receive international payments. You can see what details you’ll need to provide the sender of funds here.

ASB’s fee for processing an international electronic funds transfer to your account is $15.00 (waived for amounts of $100 or less and for credits to foreign currency accounts).

If you receive share or dividend payments via foreign currency cheque, please get in touch with your share registry to discuss alternative options. These could include direct credit to a New Zealand bank account, direct credit to a foreign bank account outside of New Zealand, or dividend reinvestment.

Please note, overseas share registries may not recognise New Zealand domiciled Foreign Currency Accounts as a valid account type for dividend payment purposes.

Government pension cheques: If you are currently receiving your pension payment from overseas government by cheque in a foreign currency, please get in touch with the overseas government department to register the pension scheme online to receive your pension electronically – this is available for payments from United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia Government pension providers.

Other pension provider cheques: If you are currently receiving your pension payment from overseas pension scheme company by cheque in a foreign currency, please contact the provider to discuss alternative ways of receiving payments which could include:

• International money transfer through a bank
• Using an alternative foreign exchange provider

For overseas government tax payments, please contact your tax adviser to determine the best alternative payment option for you.