paulbj

This has some useful info. It looks like the service I use at the moment, Transferwise, comes out pretty well in their comparisons.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/foreign-currency-exchange

Re my mention of using Bangkok bank in London to transfer funds to a Bangkok Bank account in Thailand

It isn't free but if you are moving significant sums, it might work out quite cheap if their exchange rates are competitive:

http://www.bangkokbank.com/BangkokBank/PersonalBanking/DailyBanking/TransferingFunds/TransferringIntoThailand/ReceivingFundsfromUK/Pages/ReceivingFundsfromUK.aspx

Helpful if you have a close friend in Thailand to transfer money to. I'm constantly looking for inexpensive ways to transfer money, but the best I've found so far is Western Union, only £4.90 per transaction, as opposed to the SWIFT charge when I tried using my bank.

The process for WU Is convoluted, so I thought SWIFT would be easier and quicker...... it wasn't, and it cost more.

If anyone knows of a better way I'd be interested to hear!

Bank to bank transfers can end up working out ridiculously expensive! As a test, just to see that it worked OK and that I had the right info to enter in the web-banking form, I transferred 25€ from my account in Luxembourg to my account at the Bangkok Bank over here. The final amount deducted from my Luxembourg account, including fees and charges was a staggering 39€. That was the first and last time I used direct bank to bank transfer!

I have used Transferwise ( www.transferwise.com ) several times now; they seem pretty efficient and are way, way cheaper than direct bank to bank transfers.

I have heard of, but not tried, another system that is available if you bank with the Bangkok Bank. Apparently, you can transfer money from a UK account at any bank to their London branch and they will move it to your Thai branch at little or no cost.

Those of you who bank in the UK should consider yourselves fairly lucky. I bank in Luxembourg (having lived there for many years). Luxembourg banks generally, will not send out cards; full stop! You have to go to the branch, yourself, in person and don't forget your passport or ID card. Having said that, they are far, far better than UK banks in just about every other way.

Manjit Singh Gill QC, said the law barred up to 47% of the working British population from living with a non-EU spouse in their home country.

Hardly justice... or maybe it needs to be over 50%.

Obviously we can't think non-PC thoughts about how British the spouse is - by descent etc...

How scary is that! 47% of of the British population live on around £18,000 year

Well, I have £17,000/annum as a pension (after tax), comprising: nothing whatever from the private pension scheme to which I contributed for many years which all went down the tubes in the recession, a trivial sum as a state pension for my many years contributions in the UK and a £13,500/annum Luxembourg state pension (for a mere 11 years working there). I don't own a property and when I did my calculations a year or two before I was due to retire, I realized, fairly rapidly, that there was no way that I could afford to live in the UK or that at least not anywhere south of the Humber Estuary nor indeed anywhere much in Europe and that is how I ended up in Thailand. Personally, I am truly delighted it worked out the way it did as, if I had had just a few £1000 a year more, I would have settled down to a life of relative poverty in the cold, miserable UK, whereas, with that pension, I am obscenely affluent in Thailand.

So no, I don't think their demands are unreasonable at all. I really don't know how any couple could live in Britain today in any sort of comfort on less than about £25,000. If your prospective partner is Thai or from somewhere else with a tropical climate, would you really doing them any favours by taking them back to the UK where you will both be living in relative poverty? Would you you be able to afford to heat your residence to 24° or 25°C so that your partner would feel at least comfortable. Could you afford to stump up the hundreds of £s it would cost to outfit your partner with warm enough clothing and footwear to survive the UK's wonderful climate? These are the questions I would be asking someone in that position.

Thailand is an example of perfect road safety compared to India! There, everyone drives with their lights off or uses just side lights after dark. When they see an oncoming vehicle, the routine then is to turn on full beam headlights and drive straight at them. Last one to swerve is chicken or, equally likely, a bus full of dead passengers.