ANZ vs Wise: International Transfer Fees Compared

ANZ or Wise: which actually costs less?

ANZ charges NZ$0 to send an international money transfer through Internet Banking or goMoney. That is a real zero, not a promotional gimmick with a fixed fee hiding behind it, and it makes ANZ's advertised pricing as good as anything a fintech offers. The catch is the part ANZ does not print: the margin it adds to the exchange rate. And on the card side, ANZ has done something no other major New Zealand bank has — dropped its personal credit card foreign currency fee to nothing at all. This page separates those two stories, because on one of them ANZ wins outright.

We earn a commission if you open an account with some of the providers listed on this page. It never changes the rate or fee you pay, and it never changes our rankings — our comparison figures come from each provider's published pricing.

ANZ's published international transfer fees, itemised

From ANZ's Fees and Charges schedule, effective 24 June 2026.

What you're doing	ANZ fee
Send an international money transfer via Internet Banking or goMoney	NZ$0
Send via ANZ Direct Online (business)	NZ$5
Send with staff assistance — branch or phone	NZ$15
Receive an international payment into an ANZ NZD or foreign currency account	NZ$15
Receive an international payment credited to a non-ANZ NZ account	NZ$15
Receive an international payment under NZ$300 equivalent	NZ$0
Amend and resend a payment	NZ$25
Enquire about or trace a payment	NZ$25
Cancel an outward payment	NZ$25
Request cancellation of an inward payment	NZ$35
Foreign currency account monthly fee	NZ$0
Exchange rate margin	Not published

Two genuinely good things in that table. ANZ covers the fees charged by its own correspondent banks, and on transfers made through goMoney or Internet Banking it covers them for a long list of corridors — Australia, the UK, the US, India, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, the Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, New Caledonia and Timor-Leste. And the NZ$300 inward waiver is the most generous of the five major NZ banks; ASB and Westpac stop waiving at NZ$100 and Kiwibank charges NZ$12 regardless. If you receive small regular payments from overseas, ANZ is quietly the best big-bank option in the country.

One caveat on the NZ$0. ANZ's own foreign exchange fee page describes it as a current fee offer rather than a permanent price. It has been in place for some time, but it is not contractually locked.

The number ANZ doesn't publish

Nowhere on anz.co.nz will you find the margin ANZ adds to the mid-market rate. Its inward payments terms say foreign currency will be converted "at the prevailing exchange rate... plus an ANZ margin," which confirms the margin exists without quantifying it.

ANZ is also not in the main third-party dataset that measures NZ providers' all-in costs, so we cannot hand you a measured figure the way we can for BNZ, ASB and Kiwibank. We are not going to invent one. What we can do is bracket it. On a NZ$5,000 transfer to the US, that dataset put BNZ at NZ$77.46, ASB at NZ$84.58 and Kiwibank at NZ$108.39 — implied margins of roughly 1.55%, 1.4–1.6% and 1.97% once each bank's own fee is stripped out. No New Zealand bank publishes a margin lower than that band, and independent surveys put major-currency bank margins at 1.5–3%. So a 1.5–2.5% working range for ANZ is conservative and clearly labelled as modelled.

Here is why that matters more than the fee. On NZ$5,000, a 2% margin is NZ$100. ANZ's transfer fee is NZ$0. The fee is 0% of your cost and the margin is 100% of it — which is exactly why fee-based comparison is the wrong tool for this job. Our full comparison of NZ bank international transfer fees works through the same arithmetic for all five banks.

Worked comparison: NZ$1,000, NZ$5,000 and NZ$20,000

Total cost, fee plus margin, sending to US dollars. ANZ rows are modelled from its published NZ$0 online fee plus the 1.5–2.5% band. Provider rows scale from the measured NZ$5,000 benchmark.

Provider	NZ$1,000	NZ$5,000	NZ$20,000
ANZ online	NZ$15–25	NZ$75–125	NZ$300–500
ANZ in branch	NZ$30–40	NZ$90–140	NZ$315–515
Wise	~NZ$5–8	NZ$16.37	~NZ$66
XE Money Transfer	~NZ$8–12	NZ$30.18	~NZ$120
OFX	~NZ$20 (NZ$12 fee + margin)	NZ$39.02	~NZ$156
TorFX	~NZ$12–16	NZ$50.51	~NZ$202
Western Union	Quote only	Quote only	Quote only

The NZ$5,000 figures for Wise, XE, OFX and TorFX are third-party comparison data. The NZ$1,000 and NZ$20,000 columns extrapolate from those, so treat them as indicative rather than quoted — small transfers skew worse for any provider with a fixed fee component, which is why OFX's NZ$12 charge below NZ$10,000 hurts most at the bottom of the range.

On NZ$20,000 the gap is roughly NZ$250–430 in Wise's favour. That is the sort of number worth ten minutes of your time. On NZ$1,000 the gap is NZ$10–20, which is real but not life-changing, and if you already bank with ANZ and value the convenience, nobody sensible would tell you off for using it.

How long each takes

ANZ international money transfers move on the SWIFT network and typically land in one to three business days, stretching to five for less common corridors. ANZ does not publish a guaranteed timeframe, which is normal — the correspondent chain is outside its control. Wise settles a large share of major-currency transfers within hours and often in seconds where it holds local payout rails, but slower cases do exist for first-time transfers, larger amounts and compliance checks.

Speed is rarely the deciding factor between the two. What matters more is your cut-off time: an ANZ transfer submitted at 4pm on a Friday and a Wise transfer submitted at the same moment will both be waiting on the same overseas banking day.

When ANZ is genuinely the better choice

These are not hedges. They are situations where using Wise would be the wrong call.

• Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and the Cook Islands. Wise does not support them. ANZ does, and covers the correspondent fees on most of those corridors when you send online. This is not close — for those destinations ANZ is simply the answer. (Fiji, for the record, is supported by both.)
• You receive frequent small payments from overseas. ANZ's NZ$300 inward waiver beats every other NZ bank. Three NZ$250 payments a month arrive free at ANZ and cost NZ$36–45 at ASB, Westpac or Kiwibank.
• A large transfer where you want a relationship manager. On a NZ$600,000 property settlement or a business acquisition payment, the ability to phone someone at ANZ who can escalate a stuck SWIFT message and put their name to it is worth more than 1.5%. Wise has support; it does not have your account manager.
• You need a bank cheque or a documentary credit. Some visa applications, court filings, foreign universities and trade counterparties will accept nothing else. Letters of credit, bank guarantees and drafts are bank products. No digital provider issues them.
• Exotic currencies and unusual destinations. ANZ's SWIFT reach covers destinations that sit outside Wise's 80-country send list. If the corridor is obscure, check the bank first.
• Your lending is bundled into a package. If your mortgage or overdraft pricing depends on a relationship tier, check what moving your FX volume does to it before you move it. Usually nothing. Occasionally not.
• Forward contracts and hedging. If you need to lock a rate for a payment twelve months out, that is a dealing-desk conversation. ANZ, OFX and TorFX will have it with you. Wise will not.

ANZ card fees overseas: the one where ANZ wins

This is the most useful thing on this page and it has nothing to do with transfers.

Card	Currency conversion charge	ANZ's overseas ATM fee
ANZ personal credit card	0%	NZ$0
ANZ personal debit / Visa Debit	1.30%	NZ$0
ANZ business credit and debit cards	1.30%	NZ$0
Wise debit card	No foreign transaction fee; conversion from 0.25% at the mid-market rate	Free to NZ$400/month, then 2.69%

An ANZ personal credit card charges no currency conversion fee at all. For context, BNZ charges 2.25%, Kiwibank 1.85% on credit and 2.50% on debit, ASB 2.10%, and Westpac 1.83%. ANZ's own travel guidance confirms it: "we won't charge you a currency conversion charge." On NZ$4,000 of holiday spending that is NZ$0 at ANZ against NZ$90 at BNZ. The one qualification is that your card is still converting at the Visa or Mastercard scheme rate, which carries a small spread of its own, whereas the Wise card converts at the mid-market rate with the fee shown separately. In practice the difference between a 0% ANZ credit card and a Wise card on card spending is small enough that other factors decide it — cash access, budgeting in the local currency, and whether you want to carry a credit balance. Our guide to the best card to use overseas from NZ compares them side by side, and should I pay in NZD or local currency covers the dynamic-currency-conversion trap that costs more than either fee.

What Wise doesn't do

Being straight about this makes the rest of the page worth reading. Wise cannot hand you banknotes — if you need US dollars in cash before you fly, you need a bureau or an ATM at the other end, and currency exchange near me covers where to go. Wise does not do bank cheques, drafts or letters of credit. It does not lend. It does not assign you a dealer. It cannot send to Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, PNG or the Cook Islands.

And on regulation, the honest version: Wise Payments Ltd operates in New Zealand as a foreign entity and is not licensed by a New Zealand regulator. It is supervised by the Department of Internal Affairs for anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism-financing purposes. Your money is safeguarded rather than covered by a deposit guarantee. Some people will read that and stay with ANZ. That is a defensible decision, and you should make it knowing the numbers rather than instead of knowing them.

How to actually decide

1. Get both quotes for the same amount, at the same moment. Enter the exact figure in ANZ's transfer screen and in Wise's calculator. Compare the amount the recipient receives, not the fee.
2. Check the mid-market rate independently so you know what the real number is. Our currency converter will do it.
3. Send in the destination currency, not NZD. ANZ does not surcharge NZD sends the way BNZ and Westpac do, but converting before the money leaves New Zealand keeps the rate visible either way.
4. If it's a Pacific corridor, use ANZ. Don't overthink it.
5. If it's over NZ$50,000, get a third quote from OFX or TorFX. At that size a dealer will sharpen the rate, and the difference between 0.3% and 0.8% is real money.

Frequently asked questions

Is ANZ's international transfer fee really $0?

Yes, for transfers sent through ANZ Internet Banking or goMoney, per ANZ's Fees and Charges schedule effective 24 June 2026. It is NZ$15 with staff assistance in a branch or by phone, and NZ$5 via ANZ Direct Online. ANZ describes the NZ$0 as a current fee offer rather than a permanent price, and it does not cover the exchange rate margin.

Is ANZ international transfer expensive?

On the fee, no — it is the cheapest headline in the market at NZ$0 online. On total cost, yes, relative to specialists. ANZ does not publish its exchange rate margin, and the three NZ banks whose all-in cost has been measured came in at 1.55% to 2.17% on a NZ$5,000 transfer to the US. On that basis an ANZ transfer of NZ$5,000 plausibly costs NZ$75–125 against NZ$16.37 through Wise.

What exchange rate does ANZ use for international transfers?

ANZ does not disclose it. Its terms state that foreign currency is converted at the prevailing exchange rate "plus an ANZ margin," confirming a markup without quantifying it. The only way to know what you are paying is to compare ANZ's quoted rate against the mid-market rate at the moment you transfer.

Does ANZ charge a foreign transaction fee on cards?

Not on personal credit cards — ANZ charges a 0% currency conversion charge on those, which is unusual among New Zealand banks. Personal debit cards, business credit cards and business debit cards carry a 1.30% currency conversion charge. ANZ adds no fee of its own for overseas ATM withdrawals, though the ATM operator may.

Does ANZ charge to receive money from overseas?

Yes, NZ$15 per inward payment, whether it is credited to an ANZ account in NZD or foreign currency or passed to a non-ANZ New Zealand account. Payments under NZ$300 equivalent are free — the most generous inward waiver of the five major NZ banks.

Can I send money to Samoa or Tonga with Wise?

No. Wise does not support Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea or the Cook Islands. ANZ does, and covers its correspondent banks' fees on those corridors when you send through goMoney or Internet Banking. Fiji is supported by both. For Pacific destinations, ANZ is the right choice.

How long does an ANZ international money transfer take?

Typically one to three business days, and up to five for less common corridors. ANZ does not publish a guaranteed time because the correspondent bank chain is outside its control. Submitting before the daily cut-off matters more to the arrival date than the provider you choose.

Should I use ANZ or Wise?

Use Wise for sending money to supported countries, where it costs roughly a fifth of a bank transfer on NZ$5,000. Use ANZ for Pacific destinations Wise cannot reach, for bank cheques and documentary credits, for large transfers where you want a named contact, and for receiving small payments under NZ$300. For card spending overseas, an ANZ personal credit card at 0% is one of the best options issued in New Zealand. Most people end up using both.

Related comparisons

See how the other four majors stack up in ASB vs Wise, BNZ vs Wise, Westpac vs Wise and Kiwibank vs Wise. For corridor-specific pricing, start with sending money to Australia from NZ or the broader send money overseas from NZ guide. A fuller account of the Wise product is in our Wise review.