We used a joint Lloyds account for our UK income and investments for a few years but in hindsight should have set up a WISE account each prior to leaving the UK. With mine receiving my last few months of my Army pay and then my AFPS75 pension directly.  Wise consistently has the best exchange rates, lowest currency transfer fees, the ability to set up multiple currency accounts within one account. Use just one visa or master-card to make payments in any currency you manage. Don’t feel you need to be loyal to your UK banks. Spare yourself the lengthy pain of changing your pension payments with Affinity once they have started.

Promos can change but using the links provided you get a free transfer or free physical card (usually worth $6) at time of writing.

WISE features that will benefit you include using the physical or digital card on your journey here including layover. Immediately on arrival to Australia, at all the easy to reach holiday destinations from Australia without ATM fees, Google Pay (tap) transaction fees or other hidden bank charges. You can do online purchases for UK family Christmas gifts and cards.  We have used it in Dubai, New Zealand, Singapore, Bali, Thailand and Vietnam without losing a single dollar in fees.

Give your Australian WISE account details to your unit pay clerk and receive your ADF pay into it.

However, if you wish to keep your UK account for your pension or other income, you can still transfer money from them to WISE and through WISE transfer it to your Australian bank account at the best rate and lowest fee available.

As much as I love WISE, there are small fees for transfers in the same currency and to avoid them adding up for multiple direct debits and subscriptions you can use a traditional bank account for day-to-day spending in Aus (See below). We use NAB.