Expat2B

One  of  the  requirements  for  30  day  visa  exemption  is  that  you  have  an  onward  ticket...........so  if  your  tickets  were  ever  checked  you  could  be  refused  entry. If  you  are  coming  for  longer  than  30  days  best  to  get  the  appropriate  visa  before  you  leave  home  that  will  negate  any  potential  problem. Some  people  on  this  forum  advocate  obtaining  an  onward  ticket  and  then  cashing  it  in  upon  arrival  here  in  Thailand.............personally  i/d  take  the  easy  route  and  pay  for  a  tourist  visa. Your  carrier  will  probably  not  let  you  board  the  aircraft  to  come  here  in  the  first  place  without  an  onward  ticket  as  the  onus  is  on  them  to  return  you  to  your  point  of  departure  if  you  dont  gain  entry...........and  they  would  be  fined.

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100 per cent correct. Happy New Year

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Most airlines get concerned at you travelling on an apparent O/W ticket, I do this a lot usually due to nested itineraries. Noone has ever asked to see my return ticket when I explained I had one. YMMV of course but how many check in agents know the subtleties of Thai immigration, unless perhaps you are travelling from elsewhere in SE Asia.

I seem to remember Chang Beer was sold as a premium beer in the UK in the early 90's as Carlsberg Thai Elephant Beer. The big selling point being the strength. Was a masterpiece of marketing really, selling a budget product in the country of origin as a premium product in Europe.

Had quite a bit of fun drinking it in the student bar when at Uni.

Not sure what became of this though, I can't imagine Carlsberg being too keen to continue in the circumstances

Steve

Thanks for this, the individuals I have in mind are very well known to me, but I am aware of the potential pitfalls, having dealt with much larger labour problems in BKK for a large UK corporation I used to work for. In due course I will probably look to establish a Thai company effectively as a subsidiary of my UK company. I see the primary benefit of this however as facilitating immigration and a work permit, when I choose to base myself in BKK permanently.

I have been through a whole cycle of wanting to move to Thailand, checking opportunities, becoming increasingly despondent about the inherent difficulties of doing business in a straightforward way etc. In the current climate I concluded that I really can't be bothered jumping through endless hoops just for the privilege of contributing lots of tax $ to the Thai Government. My current solution seems to me to be the best way to dip my toe into the water and remain legal.

Fundamentally I have got to the point where I think sod em, if they really don't want foreigners here and come up with all sorts of ways to make life difficult, why the ###### should I bother hiring a lot of Thais and paying Thai Tax etc.

Will your Thai staff be performing work that involves invoicing and collecting money from clients inside Thailand? If not, then you might be able to operate by forming a Thai Represntative Office of your overseas firm. This then becomes the entity inside Thailand to pay salaries, with personal income tax withheld.

The cost to form such an entity is maybe US $1,500 total - provided that your overseas company does not have huge capoitalization (there is a Thai government fee of 2,000 baht, plus 5 baht per 1,000 baht of parent company capitalization - with a combined minumum of 22,000, and a combined maximumof 252,000 baht).

If this sounds like what you need, send me a messgae to which I can reply with attachments, and I will send you details.

Good luck!

Steve Sykes

Managing Director

Indo-Siam Group

Bangkok

[email protected]

www.thaistartup.com

Steve

All invoicing and collections will be done ex London, with Thai staff used only to maintain contact with clients, provide administrative support etc. and most importantly provide translation servces.

So are you saying that the only way a foreign company can employ Thais is via a representative office? How about if I were to employ staff on a freelance basis? I am basically seeking to avoid getting sucked into Thai beauracracy and accompanying potential tax liabilities etc. If I have to set up a rep office then I probably won't bother, seems more trouble than it is worth to me. I could support operations in Thailand from elsewhere in Asia. I will not be seeking any banking presence in Thailand with all salaries/fees paid electronically from London.

Surely I can choose to pay fees/salary to anyone in any country I choose? The declaration of this income for tax purposes is a matter for the individual concerned rather than my company? There will be an audit trail of electronic transactions which I suppose the tax office could query with the individuals, but this isn't directly my concern is it?

Can anyone comment about the implications of hiring Thais via my UK company. My starting assumption is that this should be relatively straightforward, since I have no work permit issues to worry about, and can make direct gross payments without having to withold Tax or Social Security payments, since my UK based business has no obligation to the Thai Authorities.

This does however seem a bit too straightforward, this makes me suspicious because nothing in this country ever turns out to be straightforward. I am thus clearly missing something but what? I do want to ensure that things are kosher from the UK end since I want to ensure that the salary costs form part of my business expenses for tax purposes.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

As a fan of M&S Gold label tea, I was pleasatly surprised to find it (and M&S Earl Grey) in the pseudo M&S branches they have here. I buy it at Siam Centre.

I think as a non res, you are liable for Uk tax for UK earnings only. Thus if you transfer money into an on-shore UK account you will be liable for tax on the interest. The solution is to open an off-shore (Jersey, Isle of Man etc.) account with a UK bank and thus avoid any tax liability within the UK proper.

I know nothing at all about this subject but I presume that it is also permissible to teach with a masters degree, even without a bachelors degree. So isnt the best answer to top up with a year doing an MA or Msc (or even MBA)? Courses seem cheap and plentiful in thailand.

I understand that to get married I need a certification from the UK embassy that I am not married. Does this mean that I need to show them copies of my divorce decree etc. or does it merely take the form of an affadavit?

If I need to show copies of my decree etc. will the documentation from them indicate my previously married status? Basically I ask so that I know how much I need to tell my prospective in laws about my past relationship (my Fiance is knows the situation).

Hope someone can help.

I second "Fan Chan"(my girlfriend) a great film

Digger

Thanks for this useful and constructive advice. It seems like a viable way forward that I hadnt really considered. The only big issue with entering the regional market in consulting is that it can be a very difficult market to pentrate without a good network of contacts. Do you have personal experience in this market?

I have a few points to make:

1) The UK is a safe, stable country with a temperate climate, (not to hot, not to cold), a stable government, an excellent education system, with a strong currency, good economic growth, and manages to provide a reasonable living standard for most of its population.  It is also a land of opportunity.  Immigrants from asia often risk thier life to come to britain, hiding in trucks, claiming to be refugees, etc.  Why leave such a country.

2) I assume the reason you have 200k is because you sold your house.  How much are you really saving per year... 10K?

3) You spend more than the average brit earns in a year on travel.  You might have a speding problem.. 

4) Expats worldwide send thier kids to school in the UK.  In SIngapore, a UK education is deemed very prestigous.  The uk has many famous boarding schools.  Why do asian fdamilies save for many years to send thier kids to the uk to be educated?

5) You could easily afford to briing your thai wife over to britain.  Why would her family object.  Most thai women would jump at the opportunity to mov to england with a guy earning in excess of 7m bhat per year. 

6) you should be investing to develop an income from dividends and rent.  Why not buy your wife a small business, and see how much it makes.

7) if you already spend several months a year in thailand, why change your jet set life style.  Buy some property in phuket, and enjoy your time with your wife.  '

8) I assume you are some sort of IT contractor or project manager?  Your skills can very quickly disappear if you do not use them.  Protect your earnings and stay in the UK.

en,

Its horses for courses I suppose but in answer to your queries

1) Simple answer for me is increasing disillusionment and the prospect of poor economic conditions following the inevitable meltdown in property values. Another very good reason is to extract cash from my company without paying punitive levels of tax, I need to be non resident in the Uk for a period of time. Other than that its personal choice, I am not knocking the place but have spent too long here not to know it isnt time for a change (even if that isnt forever).

2) Nope you are wrong, unfortunately I only got half of the sale proceeds of my house due to the end of my former relationship, about 70k came from property sale, I can comfortably save somewhere in the order of £50k per annum at the moment

3) Its relative, if the average Brit earned what I do I am sure they would spend a lot more on travel, given the way my travel is financed (since the very act of seeking new business opportunities in asia makes it a tax deductible expense) the net cost is a lot lower than the headline figure. I am happy with my lifestyle, but could cut back as and when it really became essential for me.

4) Boarding schools in the uk might be great (at a price) but state schools are poor and I wouldnt want to send my kids to one (and I went to one myself). Not only that but the pressures and influences on kids here I think are unhealthy (just look at the way some of them dress and act). Many pepople send their kids to Uk boarding schools out of sheer snobbery. I am not a great believer in boarding schools at least until the age of 11, there are great schools in thailand and a fraction of the cost of something adequate in the UK.

5) Neither she nor her family would object, I believe she would miss her home however and she is close to her parents whilst I am not to mine. Since they are not getting any younger how easy would it be to visit them or respond to a crisis? She is an only child which also I think makes this even more important.

6) No point developing income from rent when the arse is falling out of the uk buy to let property market (massive oversupply of property forcing down rents at a time when underlying values are likely to fall from the property bubble either bursting or gradually deflating - depending upon who you choose to believe). I dont know enough about property elsewhere in the workd to make informed investement decisions (except I belive that the thai property market is potentially even more overvalued than that in the UK). In my opinion current stock market growth in the west (and especially in Thailand) is based on an overoptimistic view of economic growth and unrealistic discounting of potential economic problems. i prefer to remain relatively liquid from considered choice, not naivety, howver I did not say I didnt have additional (carefully chosen) investments did I?

My wife to be is a lawyer not a business person, and where would I buy her a business anyway? In BKK whilst I was in the Uk (I know many people do that but not for me), or in the uk where she could combine her lack of business experience with a lack of understanding of the uk market, people and products?

7) I am able to spend a reasonable amount of time in thailand right now because of the nature of my particular work right now, this may well change significantly in the near future. In addition I would like to be able to spend some time living at least in the same city as my fiance before finally taking the plunge into marriage.

8) I do not work in IT, although often work on the fringes of IT, my work does involve large chunks of project management amongst other things. But recent tax proposals would see me paying effectively 40% more tax on my earnings and effectively being in a worse financial position than someone employed by a large company on 50% of what i am currently paid. I would like to retain practice in some areas of work if at all possible (and have said as much in earlier posts).

I answer these questions (in spite of the clear implication contained within them) to underline the point that I am not some naive dreamer but have thought long and hard about the things I do want and the things I do not. I have a clear goal in mind and raised my original post to try and bottom out some views from others (who may even have been through the same experience) on how to move closer to my goal. If it turns out that it was the wrong goal then I have only myself to blame but at 35 I am confident that I could (if it came to it) make some mistakes for a year or two and still return to the Uk and find something which paid me well.

I am not looking for a way to finance hanging out in go go bars every night (not that I have anything against those who choose to do so), I am looking at trying to find a way of life which I think will make me and my new family happier. Is it that hard to believe that someone is willing to trade quite a lot of income against a potentially better quality of life?

In the Uk I have a small consulting business which brings in a very good income (£100k + right now),

My friend listen too me. If you are earning 100K pounds a year then in 2 years you will have 200K theoretically if you can save it. In Thai baht at the current exchange rate that is 14 million baht, that in both your standards and Thai standards is a lot of money. That is an incredible amount of income by any standards in the world, why give it away for the unknown unless sure?

You should do what I did, I worked my guts out for 25 years in my home country in Mondaying jobs to buy property and invest in shares, in the end the debt was finally paid off and now I live off the income that provides. I won't go into it any further details here but if you want to private message please feel free to do so.

In your case with that kind of income you only need to save for 2 years! That is what it took me 25 years to get together!! If you put 200K pounds in for 5% interest that would give give you 58,000 baht a Month income for sitting on your ringer doing nothing! I assure you most ex pats including myself live on a lot less than that per Month.

If you are spending 30K Pounds a year in Travel to Thailand then you have a serious expenditure problem. That is way over the top and as I write Im using my calculator saying this guy spends 2 million baht a year in travel!!

In summary old mate, save your money for 2 years then retire on the interest and live happily ever after in Thailand with NO hassels and no business worries. Good luck!

bmanly

Thanks for your thoughts, I coud actually have about £200k in the bank by the end of this year, the problem is that because of the nature of my work this is in no way guaranteed. I dont want to move to Thailand as some sort of utopian dream of bar crawling and a new girl every night. I want to be there because the girl I want to marry is Thai and I think it is a better environment to live and bring up kids. Due to pressure from her family etc. (see my original post) I cannot inifintely delay this, even if I wanted to (which I do not).

As I have freely admitted I have a very good standard of living here in the UK (although since selling my house I am now skimping a bit on accommodation costs, whist I work out the direction my life will take). One of lifes great ironies is that it is far easier to get accustomed (and adicted) to a higher standard of living than a lower one. I have recalculated my travel expenses and notice I did overstate a little, they are in reality closer to £26k at 6 trips a year, business class flights, 5 star hotel/condo etc for 10-21 days a time. Luckily I recharge the bulk of these to my uk company so at least effectively offset about 20% to 25% of the cost (as business development costs )

I am 34 and too young to retire (and would be bored out of my brain if I did). I couldnt manage on 58k a month and even if I did, the depreciation on capital (i.e. inflation) would start to bite after taking all the interest earned, this is quite apart from visa and other issues which would be raised by not having a WP.

I personally think the £-Baht rate will hit 85 before it stops slipping (see my response to the speculators thread) which would assist in an early move, that said as mentioned above I think the bubbles within the Thai economy are due to be pricked very soon after the next election (at the latest) and this might well push the baht towards the 100 to the £ level or beyond.

The bottom line as I said above if everything goes pear shaped I can ship back to the Uk and still earn a good salary as long as I either dont spend too long out of the UK (24 months max) or do somethinig to retain/enhance my skills whilst in Thailand. It is this latter course which I find most appealing, but with the former as a good fallback position.

E-2-B -

With no background as an entrepreneur, I launched my own business here in Bangkok back 21 months ago.  I did just about everything wrong.  Many painful lessons learned.  'Ate up most of my life's savings.  But - some serendipity occurred, and I now have a sustaining business going, with steadily growing income.  And I see Thailand poised right now for at least 2-3 years of tremendous national business success.  For business, Thailand is "the right place, at the right time."

I personally would never buy a business in Thailand unless I had lived next to it or worked in it for a couple of years.

Thanks for the detailed response Steve, I must say a lot of your advice tallies with my own thoughts. I feel that I could take a year or two off right now and still return to the UK and get a decent income if everything went "tits up".

The only thing I would disagree with is your forecast for the thai economy, I do wonder about the health of the thai economy after the next election, since the government seem to be stoking up an irresponsible consumer credit boom/bubble accompanied by similar property and stock market bubbles. When these burst things could get a little nasty, so servicing a foreign market/exporting, seems to be the safest place to be.

I wholeheartedly agree with your comment on not buying a business unless you know it well. It seems to me that in buying a business in thailand one encounters problems unusual elsewhere in the world. Since the flow of cash through the business and the financial accounts of that business may not perfectly match (to put it mildly), it seems impossible to really know what you are/are not buying unless you know the business very well.

I would pose this question to Greg from Sunbelt, how can anyone really truly know the cashflow they are buying in an environment where it would seem that so much cash is not properly accounted for (to save tax, or to meet the needs of customers)? It seems that unless you personally know the business very well, that you can never have anything like enough certainty to do anything other than take a big gamble. I still think for this reason many of the "plum" businesses are likely to be bought by those close to them rather than via brokerages.

You say you have a consultancy business - could you not "dip your toe in the water" and attract a project or two in Thailand or the region? I think that you would be foolhardy to throw up your currant GBP100K income just when you are likely to need it most - i.e. you are going to get married and considering starting a family.

I am in HK and it is quite easy for a Brit to do business here - with new openings to the mainland creating further opportunities. The property market appears to have bottomed out. It is also very accessible to Bkk which, for me,is a major attraction. (Oh, and I forgot to mention - low taxes).

Don't even think about teaching English or buying a bar!

Thanks for this pnustedt.

I have no intention of buying a bar or teaching english I just raised these as illustrations of the 2 main things it seems many do as "easy" options. I would love to pick up some contracts in the region, my difficulty is lacking network contacts to pick up work opportunities. Is it easy to pick things up "on the ground" so to speak, employed or contract? I have spent a bit of time in HK and think in many ways is a more natural environment for us Brits. Just out of curiosity what do you do there (PM me if you like)?

DavidM and Khun

Yea thanks for the feedback, I am not naive enough not to know the pitfalls here, but I think there are some advantages to being outside of the Uk for a little while too.

These include: -

No exposure to the (likely) falling property market

No kidding yourself that you have a secure job

Being forced to think harder about things which are of real value (rather than blow wads of money on crap as I do now)

Not being in the UK (an environment which I am beginning to hate with a passion)

I am not interested in some of the more obvious farang temptations, I have a gf from a good family with a good job (unfortunately not good enough to support me too ) to whom I am completely loyal (and intend to remain so). We want to get married and have a family, despite the fact that she has been educated in the west as well as in Thailand, I really feel she will be happier there (as would I with anything like a decent income), since she is close to her family and I am not so close to mine. I am not at all comfortable with starting married life however without a clear ability to support my wife and any future family.

The fallback position is finding work in the broader region perhaps as far away as Dubai. Given that she is at a quite early stage of her career I feel it could be damaging for her to leave even if this might seem the simplest option. also because of what she does working in the Uk would be likely to involve extensive and expensive retrainng.

I am currently spending the best part of £30k a year on airfares, accommodation etc for 1 visit every 2 months (I could cut this down, but I have admittedly expensive tastes), so how much will I really lose?

All this would be less relevant perhaps if I knew that in the long term I would carry on earning at the same rate (in the UK), I may do but I dont know, and there is little satisfaction in doing something that you really do not enjoy just for the money. I am not an idiot I paid a lot of (my own) money to get an expensive business education, so am not in a burning hurry to buy myself a bar, restaurant or any other crap business that someone is trying to unload. I have a strong desire to truly run a proper business (because I am good at that) rather than carry on in the quasi-employed state I am currently in.

I might perhaps be prepared to accept less pay for a year or so, so that i could retain skills whilst outside the Uk which would make it easier to return, however in my experience it is difficult to find even this type of opportunity. I really cannot believe that the choices come down to teaching english or buying a bar etc.

I have been pondering a move to Thailand for some time now for many reasons mainly the crap weather, poor quality of life, high taxes and miserable people here in the UK. Along the way I have acquired a Thai GF (soon to be fiance) who is highly qualified and working in a good professional job. She does however come from a conservative family, who are not at all happy at the amount of time we are spending together every 6 weeks to 2 months when I am in Thailand, and when I am there find myself constantly watching the clock to ensure she is back home "on time" each evening.

Since we have been together for some time, we are now keen to take the next step and get engaged and subsequently married. The big problem for me however is job/income uncertainty here in the UK (if we had to live here) and complete job/income uncertainty there if I take a gamble and just move to Thailand on spec.

In the Uk I have a small consulting business which brings in a very good income (£100k + right now), I am well educated to MBA level and have good all round business skills (and extensive experience in management and business improvement consulting with large companies and governmental bodies). However I also have fairly expensive tastes so have been spending a large amount/all of my earnings for as a long as I can remember (like many others I guess). I am in my mid 30's if this is of any relevance.

After returning to the UK earlier this week I am completely fed up and find it difficult to motivate myself workwise and I really just want to throw in the towe here and move, but I am sensible enough (and have done enough research) to know that this will be far from easy, especially finding something to bring in an income I would consider decent.

I sold up my property a few months ago (mainly as part of the final split from my ex here). Since I think that property values are due for a sharp fall in the UK, I havent bought anything new and have over £100k in the bank which rises on a monthly basis (quite significantly) from my contract income (which could end any day). I also have a further £50k available which covers my outstanding MBA loan (over 7 years at a very low rate of interest). I would be wary of tapping into this fund unless I could get a much better rate of return than the 5% interest I am currently paying (and enough extra to balance the currency risk).

So enough background about me, basically I am looking for advice on how/if it is possible to enjoy a very good lifestyle in LOS without being relocated there as an employee of a large foreign company. It seems there are 2 routes to finding a good job/income in Thailand, 1) local networking 2) buying a business. How realistic is it to take either of these routes and find something that will yield (over the longer term) at least 150k baht per month? Should I just give up on this goal now and try my luck in China/HK/SIN? How easy is it to find work in these regions also (I understand that the economy in SIN especially is having difficulties). I also seem to find that businesses for sale via brokers tend not to be particularly appealing (no offence intended to those who run brokerages) since I assume that the best opportunities tend to come from networking and word of mouth contact (as in any other part of the world), am I a million miles away here?

So I guess I am asking in a very long winded way, what are my realistic chances of being able to earn a reasonable income within a 12 month period of just moving to BKK? I have assumed that a non-imm B visa would be fairly straightforward to get from a consulate here based on cash for investment available and a letter from my own UK company.

The Financial Times reported today that the dollar probably has a further 13% to fall before it starts hitting its long term floor (previously against the Deutschmark, in the pre-Euro days). Their opinion, which I subscribe to is that the dollar looks like being weak for the next 5-10 years, since it has been heavily overvalued in recent years.

The US Government seems quite content to let it fall and stimulate export demand, and empirical evidence (e.g. last months trade figures) shows that this is working.

Given the shape of the Japanese economy, the Japanese Yen really needs to track the changes in dollar value if Japanese goods (e.g. Cars, electronics etc.) are to remain competitive in their principal export market. Since many currencies are in fact pegged to the dollar (e.g. China and HK) they will automatically follow the dollar downwards. The Thai government will have little choice but to follow the general trend and retain their current exchange rate with the dollar, in fact the BOT has publically stated that they feel an appropriate exchange rate is 45 baht to the dollar. The alternative would be to become increasingly uncompetitive with chinese exports into the US (not an attractive proposition for Thailand).

This will mean (and maybe this is wishful thinking on my part) that there is significant room for the baht to depreciate further against both the Euro and sterling. I would be betting on it hitting at least 85 baht to the pound before the slide stops. This all could be an elaborate ploy by the US to effectively force a revaluation of the Yuan and similar currencies (which the US is also on public record as deeming to be desirable). In which case other asian currencies will see less pressure to track the dollar downwards (unless they wish to seize import opportunities into the US, gaining market share from the Chinese).

Let us also not forget that it was the weak dollar in 1997 which was at least partly to blame for precipitating the baht devaluation. I would be exceptionally wary of holding large quantities of baht with such an uncertain macroeconomic outlook (and against a trend of a weakening baht relative to major currencies excluding the dollar).

It is a fact that governements start bemoaning the damage that "currency speculators" are doing when they do not like the way in which market forces are pushing their respective national currencies. However in the long term the speculators tend to be working on behalf of the market by prompting sensible realignment of exchange rates (e.g. the £ devaluation against the then Ecu, prompting its exist from the ERM).

All in I think (or is that I hope) it is looking like being a very good time for Europeans to move to LOS.

I have been asked for my boarding card on at least my last 3 visits (since September). I suspect that this is related to security and double checking the info on the visa waiver form/landing card.

Muay, thought of this query again when on a website I use to get phone cards. Was surprised to see they do international call divert from the Uk free of charge (less a £10+VAT recurring monthly fee it seems).

try QXTelecom and look at their international call forwarding options under their business services. I might well pick up this service myself following my relocation to BKK soon.

Hope this helps, sorry it is a bit late though. By the way in calling card terms I think there product and service is very good.

It is a constant sourse of amazement to me how well Emirates seem to do in these surveys. I have had to fly with Emirates several times in First & Business Class and have to say they are not a patch on BA or many other airlines in either of these classes. Who actually completes these surveys and on what basis are they judging? I would hate to sample the comparator airlines, which respondents are judging to be infeiror to Emriates.

Emirates in brief has:-

A tired seating product

Uninspriring catering

Poor seat pitch

Poorest IFE I have ever experienced

Poor baggage handling

Very poor cabin attendants

As you can guess I am not a fan

Interflora to Thailand are ridiculously expensive, since flowers tend to be quite cheap (relatively locally). 2 good sites I have used are Cathaliya Florists and Flower Feedback (soory I dont have the links but Google should help you out).

Flower feedback is especially good, they take a polaroid of the recipient with the flowers you sent them and email it to you, both sites are about 50% cheaper i found (if not more) than Interflora.

My Thai GF was also extremely pleased with the flowers delivered to her office.

You probably wont have enough call volume (i.e. lots) for an 0845 to work in terms of yielding return, and it is highly unlikely that the relatively small amount of "profit" you could make from this would make from an 0845 number would go anywhere near the cost of covering forwarding international phone calls. If you are planning to run very large volumes of calls then you can probably afford my consultancy fees and I can give you more details

As far as services go, do we what I did, run a Google search for accommodation services in London etc. and you will probably find what you are looking for. You will proabbly find that you will be looking at a recurring monthly fee and call forwarding costs.

Once again the important issue is around call volumes as the higher these are the more negotiating leverage you will enjoy.

It is possible to rovide a premium rate number, e.g. 0845 (in UK) which potentially gives you a revenue share of the call costs and appears as a National Rate Call in the UK. NGNS (Non Geographical Numbering System) call to premium rates (e.g 0900 range) will appear unattractive (and probably unprofessional) to to most bsuiness clients.

I am also looking at a similar issue, i.e. redirection of UK calls to Thailand, for my planned move and the best solution I have found is to use a UK Accommodation Services Company, who can take calls (and mail) in your Company Name, then either forward these on directly or notify you by email etc. of contacts made. This latter option is likely to be significantly cheaper. Costs for such services seem to run from about £50pm plus if you actually have calls redirected you will pick up the call costs too (which are unlikely to be cheap).

Hope this helps.

This contradicts the information I have had from HSBC International here in the UK.  I am a HSBC customer of very good standing and a Premier Banking Customer (min income requirement £70k +) here in the Uk which might or might not make a difference.  This information was as follows:-

Minimum Opening deposit is 100k Baht

Minimum Constant Balance to avoid fees 500k Baht

Banking Fees are monthly fixed amounts and not transaction dependent with an additional monthly fee for ATM usage facility.  Not cheap and arguably wrong in principle, but at no more than £15 per month, I am not going to sweat that too much.

HSBC International clearly stated this was a current account (even for non residents - i.e. no work permit) and had a cheque book facility which could be used to issue Baht denominated cheques.

Non Res Account can have funds remitted from Thailand or Overseas and full balance remitted back offshore at any time (res account has some restrictions on remitting funds overseas).

I know Net transfers (withing HSBC) are not currently working for Thailand, this creates an anomaly withing the stated Premier banking benefits of free remittance of fund overseas to offshore Premier Accounts.

My Issue with exchange had nothing to do with the fee charged for the transfer itself, actually the rates offered for the SWIFT transfer itself were reasonable, but they were looking to impose a 3% exchange fee fee for even quite large transfers, this seemed to compare badly to using a UK credit card to make payments (HSBC Premier Mastercard Fee 1.75%).

In principle I am happy to move up to 10M Baht into a Thai account, however the poor rate of interest payable (max appears to be 0.75%) makes it unlikely I will do so in practice.

I am planning to go and visit the Premier Team in Silom when I am back in BKK next month and try and bottom out some of these discrepancies before making up my mind, but there is some comfort for me in using HSBC rather than an unknown (to me) local bank.

It also seems to be potentially problematic to make large cash/travellers cheque payments into a Thai account unless you can be sure you will be able to remit this cash back overseas if necessary.  At least if the money has been wired into a Thai account there is a clear audit trail showing this money arrived from overseas.