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I stand corrected, the S.E.C. will also charge founders of private companies for misleading their investors, as they just did with SBF: “We allege that Sam Bankman-Fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto”.

I just tried to set up a THB → EUR transfer. Unfortunately not all countries nor SWIFT codes are supported, e.g. cannot transfer to Revolut. But can transfer to Wise, so for the transfer, their exchange rate was about 0.1% worse than Google (which is a mid rate, so no-one will give you that) and the fee was 250 baht. Also, the daily limit was “equivalent to 100,000 USD”. That was somewhat surprising, I would have expected less. Lastly, to do the transfer, I had to select that this was funds earned while in Thailand. I am not sure if there are other ways to set up the transfer, cause I would be rather hesitant to transfer large amounts out of Thailand, and declaring it as money earned here, unless it actually was money earned here (because of potential tax implications).

I opened a new account with Kasikorn two weeks ago, all I gave them as “proof of address” was last month’s electricity bill (which is in my name).

As for OP’s question, I’ve now been to 3 bank branches without a mask, and nothing was said about it. First time I did apologise for having forgotten my mask, and they just replied with a ไม่เป็นไร (“never mind”), so while it seems that having staff wear a mask is still company policy, it’s not mandatory for customers, in the places I have visited (Kasikorn + Krungthai).

This is not how constitutional guaranteed “freedom of movement” works. Think about it, I could drive around drunk without a driver’s license and just claim “freedom of movement”, or I could refuse to show my passport or have my bags scanned in the airport, and again claim “freedom of movement”.

Yes, but as you note, savings / fixed deposit accounts have relatively low returns. I would be hesitant to do the S&P 500 as suggested above. 15,000 baht is less than $450, and consider the loss from exchanging to/from USD, the fee for buying into the index (and selling again), and presumably also the fee for wiring money to the brokerage account. Additionally the investments will be in USD, so if the USD depreciates then so does the investment. For a Thai, the better index would probably be SETI (i.e. Thai stocks), but honestly, with the corruption being what it is, and the frequency with which military coups happen, I wouldn’t want to “invest” in Thailand (which is what you effectively do, when buying into the SETI). That said, I have not looked closer at the companies in the SET Index, but Thailand’s economy has actually been fairly good, so if you really want to invest, maybe take a closer look. But also consider what the goal here is. I would imagine that with 15k/month in savings, the main priority is principal preservation rather than growth (with risk of loss).

There are new AML/KYC requirements, but I can open and close accounts from my phone, sometimes in mere minutes. There are a few exceptions, for example I know a Cypern bank that wanted me to fax them instructions and also (some years ago) could not understand, that I had no physical utility bill, but I’ve been banking with five different European banks over the last 3 years, and everything was “self service” (online) and boiled down to the minimum wrt. “things to fill out”.

The downside is that for many things, you must speak to a bank employee, sometimes only possible in the branch where you originally opened your account, where you will first have to wait 30 minutes in line, then spend another 30 minutes signing copies of your passport and filling out random forms. I opened an account with Kasikorn two weeks ago, took about two hours (including waiting) and they could not give me internet access “because of long holiday”, I had to return to the bank at the earliest this Saturday (yesterday), which I did, and then had to spend half an hour getting it set up. Do I know have online access? No, I will get an email in five days, with login information. Honestly, this is quite absurd… And just for the records, I am talking about logging in via web browser, not the K-Plus app (which you can sign up for via an ATM).

Revolut has disposable cards, these are automatically made invalid after use. So great for online shopping, but cannot be used for subscriptions. Also, getting THB into your Revolut account will cost you 1% in exchange fees. Krungthai allows you to create a “Krungthai FUN Card” which is a free virtual debit card that can be created via their app. So ideal for subscriptions or services (e.g. Grab). This also allow a daily spending limit (specific to this card). Contrary to a previous post, Kasikorn does not seem to allow you to create virtual debit cards. I only have an option to apply for a physical debit card, which will take 7 days to deliver, and is reserved for Thai citizens. And then there is Wise, which also allows you to create virtual cards, but if you are in Thailand, you might not be able to sign up, same with Revolut.

I was paraphrasing you, this is your full statement: Which led me to say that investing in startups falls under the Securities Act and therefore they cannot “make false promises” to their investors (without legal consequences), despite not being publicly listed. So no, startups these days are not like crypto currencies.

Nor did I. In the U.S., if you give me money, with a reasonable expectation of profit, from the efforts of others, then this transaction is considered the sale of a security (the Howey test), and is regulated by the Securities Act of 1933. The Securities Act was created to protect investors against fraud and ensure proper disclosures from those “accepting money”. So back to your point that [like crypto] “most startups are built on false promises”: If a startup is misleading their investors then that could have legal implications, even for a startup that is not publicly traded. And indeed there have been examples of founders being fined or even jailed for misleading the (private) investors, but fortunately, most startups do have lawyers that know about this stuff, before they accept VC, which is why most startups are not “built on false promises”. They may have flawed business models, but that is for the investors to judge, though the startup must not give false or misleading statements to these investors. The main difference here between private and public company is that for the latter, the S.E.C. may file complaints “on their own” on behalf of the investors, which I don’t think they ever do for private companies (as they are not privy to what was promised/disclosed/etc.).

Another person who has been mentioned as a reason to buy crypto now urges people to sell, granted, he did earlier describe it as a greater fools game: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/05/jim-cramer-urges-investors-to-exit-crypto-its-never-too-late-too-sell.html

Kevin O’Leary has been mentioned as one of the arguments to buy crypto, i.e. he is a famous investor known from Shark Tank, so surely, if he invests, it must be good. It turns out that he was paid just under $15M by FTX to promote their exchange, and he did it with laughingly little due diligence. In August of 2021 he wrote that FTX “Finally solved my compliance problems with #cryptocurrencies” and that FTX met his own rigorous standards. The bankruptcy lawyer for FTX called their risk, audit and compliance procedures “a complete failure of corporate controls” and when asked on CNBC if he knew that FTX did not have a CFO, O’Leary deflected. DYOR ????

January 2022: CBDC - A Solution in Search of a Problem From the Economic Affairs Committee (of the UK parlement). The report concludes there is no convincing case for why the UK needs a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The committee found that while a CBDC may provide some advantages, it could present significant challenges for financial stability and the protection of privacy. Granted, I did only watch a few fragments of the video, but it appears to just be fear-mongering.

Right, no-one ever lose their cash or bring too little… You seem a little “out there”, but regardless, I think when most of us talk about “cashless” we just mean that it should be possible to pay for goods and services without the need to hand over physical tokens with numbers on them. My own country has been “cashless” for 10 or so years, but by law, a business is still required to accept cash between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., with a few exceptions, e.g. for remote sales or self-service kiosks, there is no cash requirement. All we ask for is just a more convenient (for us) way to pay, not having to carry around all those bills and coins all the time, just in case we need to buy some water or need a taxi, not having to regularly visit the ATM (or presumably for you, a safe) and try to figure out how much cash we will need for the rest of the day, etc.

I mean experience with vendors having to enter the amount and then customer approve it, which I have never experienced resulted in fraud. On the contrary, with a digital transaction, there is proof of what was paid, unlike being shortchanged; it has happened to me a few times, that the clerk will claim I paid with a smaller bill than what I actually handed over, or they simple give back the wrong change, where it sometimes seems on purpose (this was in China). Why? Is it about cluttering up the statement, or the fear of being tracked? As you may know, you can get a “cash card”, which should solve both problems, and can be topped up online.

Again with this silliness, we have close to 40 years experience with this stuff, yet it has never been a problem, however, I have experienced plenty of shortchanging, when paying with cash.

Most things depend on technology; all the refrigerated stuff in your convenience store would also spoil, if there is a power outage, and their cash register probably won’t open, to accept your cash. So you are just being silly! Many European countries have been mostly cashless for 20 or so years, so if it was actually a problem, we should know by now.

Been to plenty street markets / fairs in Europe where all vendors accepted payment cards (including wallet apps via NFC) using a small portable devices. In the U.S. Apple has rolled out phone-to-phone NFC payments, so vendor can use their phone to securely accept the payment. Of course there is also the QR-code approach, this is currently used by many/most Thai vendors, but it’s a bit cumbersome, because at best it requires 6 steps (open phone, open app, scan QR code, enter amount, confirm, show to vendor). Something like Apple Pay is a double-click on the power button and then put the phone in front of the payment terminal. Of course the vendor will have to enter the amount, but most vendors who take payments in Europe already do this as part of their sales system (that then provides them with profit/loss reports, tax calculation, inventory tracking, etc., though most Thai vendors would probably not care about this).

A payment card does not use batteries and have the same technology (NFC). When I travel, I usually do keep such card on me.

Most of what Sailor say is pure nonsense, but he is good at throwing numbers around, which impress people. Though In the above clip he does actually say a lot of sensible things, but he is also just speculating. It seems clear that FTX and Alameda Research just spent customer funds with no record keeping, so talking about under-collateralized loans is actually given SBF too much credit. I mean, SBF bought $15M worth of real estate in his parents name and said “oops… that was a typo, should have said FTX” (as it was paid for by company funds).

I’ve done SEPA Instant Credit from Revolut to Wise, takes at most a few seconds. I would expect your bank in Germany to also support this.

TL;DR Stupid man gives scammer access to his bank account, scammer then transfers £56,000. Revolut takes pity on the man and gives him £30,000. Yes, there was also a lady who wasn’t compensated, the argument from Revolut was that she actively transferred the money herself, and she did this despite in-app warnings, because the scammer told her to just ignore the warnings. This is just so stupid! Nothing about Revolut not being a bank (which it actually is, in the rest of Europe), and people can steal your money from anywhere, when you voluntarily hand them over, not sure a bank will reimburse you for doing this.

I was in Kasikorn last week, I asked them if my friend on tourist visa could open an account, and the answer was “absolutely not”. They had a book listing the various exceptions for allowing foreigners to open a bank account and then the required documents for this, so I think it is company-wide policy, not just this branch.

Germany still require masks on public trains and busses.