There are a number of key areas pertaining to retirement finances and banking that you should consider when you move abroad. It is crucial that you fully research the following areas

• The cost of living in your current location and how that compares with the cost of living in your home country.
• The cost of property in comparison to what you pay in your home country.
• The exchange rate that is in place between your home country and that of your intended destination. What will the impact of any major fluctuations be upon your ability to survive?
• The benefits and pensions that you currently receive or are entitled to in your home country and how these may be impacted by a move abroad. Things such as retirement pension, housing benefit, carer’s allowances and incapacity benefits should all be considered.
• The frequency with which you will want to return home and how you will fund this.

Where you are entitled to a pension or social security benefits abroad you should also consider how you will receive these. A large number of retired expats choose to have their social security cheques and pensions sent to their accounts electronically, meaning that they can access them immediately online.

A critical element of planning should concern how you will access and manage your retirement finances on an ongoing basis. If internet banking is available in your new country, it will be a good idea to set it up so that you can easily transfer all payments across. If it is not, all transactions will be manual and could take longer and you will have to ensure that you adequately plan for this.

Once you have decided where you would like to retire you will find our international relocation guides extremely useful. They contain detailed information about living costs across different types of lifestyles and living options, together with full details of the banking system and processes. Because our guides are written by expats who live and work in the countries themselves, you can be assured that the information is accurate and reliable and will be of great help when considering how you will manage your retirement finances.

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