Darrel

Rates for all banks in Thailand are posted daily, by Bank of Thailand. Link is below;

http://www.bot.or.th...te/IN_Rate.aspx

A good link, thanks, but it doesnt seem to cover accounts with names: only the standard fixed term deposits. Useful though.

My bank is Kbank and I have already checked their offers of course but thanks for that link also.

Kbank Central Festival Pattaya.

Walked in with a couple of thousand Baht, passport, 90-day visa, calling card from guesthouse. Walked out 15 minutes later with an account, an ATM card with my picture on it, a passbook and internet banking. As far as I know they dont post anything to you (I'm still in the same place and have had nothing).

From these reports this place sounds (and looks) absolutely terrible. The Fawlty Towers of Indian restaurants. Balti Towers, perhaps?

Are you worried ??

About what?

Worried about Western economies (and entire societies for that matter) going to the dogs in a barrel of lies and deceit? Yes, very.

Worried about people being tarnished or worse by falling foul of an insane witchhunt through no fault of their own? Yes, certainly.

Worried about the midnight knock on the door? Not at all. Unless farting in the bath recently became illegal and no one told me.

No you are still going to pay for the passport if you want to travel, they could double the price you would still pay for it.

Maybe not. I have long had it in the back of my mind to obtain dual-nationality if the place I finally end up wanting to live in doesnt have a decent foreign retiree visa policy, like Thailand's.

And none of that stops me from complaining about over-priced UK goverment "services" when asked. If enough people complained things would change. The only reason things dont change is because so many people just bend over and wait for what they think is inevitable.

It's only 3 hours. Whats the big deal? It used to take nearly that long to get to Pattaya from the airport, also in a minibus. Never did me any harm. As for flying, that would be insane from where I am and would take at least 24 hours and cost many times more.

With the bus I start at 7am at my hotel and get back by 3, having had lunch.

In fairness to Moneybookers the current weighting is 1.99% not 2.75

I am not sure exactly how a transfer from the UK (GBP) to Thailand would work for Moneybookers as they seem to do all their transfers in either EUR or USD or local currency (where supported - Thailand not included).

So I suspect that a transfer from the UK in GBP would attract the 1.99% fee for conversion to EUR or USD but a transfer from a Euro or Dollar account would not.

Then of course the Thai bank will do the exchange from EUR or USD at their rate.

I have to deposit 800,000Baht if I want a retirement visa.

sorry, my mistake! did not use my reading glasses when reading the opening post.

Mai pen rai. If you need glasses then like me you also qualify for a retirement visa.

Bank rates are all available on line (required by the bank of thailand). search for them.

Available, yes. Easily and in English? No.

I am a professional IT consultant and I do know how to use a search engine but this information is not readily searchable in the same way as it would be in the West where there are numerous financial search tools. More than one local Thai bank just has a link to a pdf file of a tatty typed document containing a huge list of interest rates with no link back to the corresponding account description.

The whole point of asking here was in case someone happened to know of a good account/rate being offered by a particular bank. If "search for it" is going to be the answer to a request for specific knowledge then we may as well close the forum.

why anybody would think having a time deposit in this interest rate environment (which, from all indications, might change soon) is beyond my comprehension.

I have to deposit 800,000Baht if I want a retirement visa. I have little choice. It's a small sum and so rather than have it in my regular savings account and having to check all the time that the level isnt too low for too long I would rather put it on time deposit where I dont need to think about it, and leave my savings account for living expenses only. Also the TD will earn more interest. Thai interest rates have been quite stable and close to those available in the West. Some of these fancy accounts allow you to withdraw early without penalty, and of course a 1 or 3 or 6-month time deposit will allow anyone to benefit from better rates at renewal.

More public money wasted by fools on insane witchhunts.

The only reason that governments have these hare-brained programmes is to take peoples minds off the catastrophic mis-management and criminal incompetence they are all guilty of.

You cant beat a good witch-burning for that.

Travel is a luxury and is 'taxed' accordingly. Celebrate the freedoms that your forbears never had, quit whining.

My forbears travelled widely as do I. Travel outside the UK has never been restricted. The only difference is that it didnt used to be subject to so many excessive taxes, including the passport tax.

And I doubt that anyone who travels for work would describe it as a luxury.

Debating the cost is really irrelevant, if want to travel or live outside of Blighty, you are going to pay what ever price they put on a passport, its your choice, buy the passport or dont travel...

There is always one that comes back with the tired old "if you dont like it, dont do it/buy it/go there" cop-out, isn't there? I suppose you say the same about the high cost of getting a simple confirmation letter from the UK consulate? Just because one agency/person/company has a monopoly on something does not excuse extortionate over-pricing.

I wonder why do you bother coming to a forum at all? Clearly your defeatist non-argument can be applied (equally erroneously) to pretty well every topic in here so there's little point anyone saying anything.

Well, that would appear to be incorrect as Kbank do one such account that seems to be available to anyone with a residence certificate.

I was just hoping that some other BM might know of better rates being offered by other banks, to save me visiting them all in person. I hate all banks, though I must say that Kbank in Pattaya was a million times easier and quicker to open an account with than Santander in the UK.

A UK passport costs an absolute fortune even if you have it issued in the UK. Abroad the prices are just plain silly. For what they cost I would expect the consul to deliver it to me on the same day in person with a free cold beer, plate of nibbles and a neck massage.

Normal passport........ 24 pence a week for its 10 year validity.

Oooooh gosh! Thats about 12-13 baht a whole week!!!

The 'jumbo' 48 page UK passport works out at 30 pence a week.

Sounds like a bargain to me.

It may be a bargain for people who never go anywhere but try the calculation again working out the cost per page, and then bear in mind that 1 visa/trip often equals 1 page. Anyone who travels at all frequently will probably never get 10 years' use from a passport. In fact they could use it up in just a few months.

For the purpose of meeting the retirement visa requirements I see no simpler solution than to put 800,000Baht on deposit and forget about them. I have a Kbank savings account that pays a small interest rate but the ads on bank shop-fronts suggest better rates are available. They rarely if ever put the details in English though. The websites arent very forthcoming either.

Does anyone know which Thai banks (with branches in Pattaya) offer good rates for time deposits/savings accounts on 800,000B?

Moneybookers used to be very good and very cheap but a year or two ago they very quietly introduced a 2.75% weighting fee that is only mentioned in the small print. This makes them no better than a credit card and much worse than a regular bank transfer.

And the other problem with them is that there is no protection at all if they go belly-up between getting your money and sending it on. I never use them now as with that silent fee they are little more than bandits.

They are currently using a 'residence' provision to allow issue to those who provide proof of living in Thailand (condo/rental/lease type paperwork).

Not wildly useful for anyone like me who got a £100 multiple-entry non-O visa with a view to buying or renting accommodation on arrival, which I did.

No big deal for me as before my 15 months run out I will either have done the retirement visa extension or gone to live elsewhere, but a pain for anyone in the same situation who isnt here yet.

I put "tourism" or "retirement" as the reason for my visit on my application last November (I can't remember which, and that alone is qualification for the retirement extension I expect!). Would that not still be valid?

So altogether, about 1220b for the entire trip, not including KFC lunch, and a sandwich and coffee breakfast.

Well, in March I will be paying 1800B for a minibus run, door-to-door, not least to avoid 6 hours on a motorbike and, above all, to avoid the KFC lunch. Personally I would pay several thousand more to avoid a KFC lunch.

Actually the level of service provided by most if not all UK Government bodies is little more than pathetic these days. A UK passport costs an absolute fortune even if you have it issued in the UK. Abroad the prices are just plain silly. For what they cost I would expect the consul to deliver it to me on the same day in person with a free cold beer, plate of nibbles and a neck massage.

The UK spends far too much of its limited ressources checking on its citizens personal doings and far too little on actually providing anything useful for them.

Gee ... Just think what Richard Rodgers could have done with that lyric. Instead he was stuck with Oscar Hammerstein II's:

Some enchanted evening

You may see a stranger,

I dont know. RR and OH2 did ok with :

"Younger than springtime, are you

Softer than starlight, are you,

Warmer than winds of June,

Are the gentle lips you gave me.

Gayer than laughter, are you,

Sweeter than music, are you,

Angel and lover, heaven and earth,

Are you to me."

The silliest part of all that being that these days Lt Cable would have been jailed for his relationship with Liat. What a brainless world we live in.

How long before the current moral witchhunt nonsense bans masturbation under the age of 20 as well?

I have two objections to the beach chairs:

1) the entire beach is full of them leaving barely room for walking, even though most of the chairs are empty most of the time

2) and, above all, that the price is for the day and not for the hour. There is no way I would spend more than an hour sitting in one place on a beach and I'm blowed if I'm going to spend 30B for those 60 minutes. 5B/hour is all I would be prepared to pay just for the privilege of sitting and I dont expect to pay even that if I'm buying something to eat/drink from them.

20 years ago I used to have a cup of coffee and a sit in a deck chair on Dongtan Beach for exactly the cost of the coffee. There was never any question of paying any sort of extra fee for the chair, and quite right too. You dont pay an extra fee for a barstool or a restaurant chair as long as you are ordering something from the place, do you? Even a restaurant chair with a sea view is free.

Now I just sit on the public seats for free and look at the empty beach chairs.

Oh... now I know Som Tam is the papaya salad....but I prefer the one with mango stripes, any good place for it in Pattaya ?

I dont know of anywhere permanent but there is a motorised mango salad vendor most evenings for a short while directly opposite Nuch's place. He does two versions, one with pickled crab and one with fish for people who dont eat things with legs. They both taste great. 40B or less, I think.

Nuch's place is the Soi Buakow end of Soi Xzyte, not far from the Bowling Club and more or less opposite the French Bakery.

It looks like Park Lane to me. parklanejomtienresort.com

Next door to the Majestic. Private transport is essential. Big wet market just opposite though there was hardly anyone in it the day I went.

Quite nice buildings with decent interiors for the price. A ground floor unit means you can take just one step straight from your balcony into the pool! Not much space around the pool area for sitting if you dont have a ground floor unit though.

Plenty of Russian and Thai owners. I suspect it could get noisy at times. Should attract plenty of cheap long-term renters also, like the Majestic.

A big new development also by Iguana is going up right next door. (And presumably many others afterwards.)