OJAS

But no-one - and I mean absolutely no-one - can surpass the legions of clueless dimwits employed by HMPO in the daftness stakes! They are in a league of their own.

I believe that at one time UK embassies worldwide used to provide a one-stop shop to local expats needing services provided by HM Government. This is, unfortunately, no longer the case, with the result that expats are now required to deal direct with a whole raft of Government organisations depending on which service they are after - e.g. HMPO in the case of passport renewals, DWP in the case of the State Pension and HMRC in the case of taxation issues generally. And this shift of responsibilities appears to have happened at the same time as the "joined-up Government" concept, which was being so enthusiatically espoused by the likes of Tony Blair 20 years ago, has been steadily eroded in the meantime - with the result that it appears that each component part of HM Government is now required to confine its activities to responsibilities which fall strictly within the purview of their particular silo, with blinkers firmly attached so as to prevent any "undesirable" sideways glances into other silos. I strongly suspect that a negative consequence of all this, as far as we are concerned, is that embassies' detailed knowledge of local issues which could affect how HM Government services are provided to expats living abroad is almost certainly not passed on these days to those sitting in HMPO, DWP and HMRC ivory towers.

This requirement has negative implications not only for those who need to open a Government Gateway account in order to check their State Pension tax payments but also, more generally, for those needing to open an account in order to file tax returns online (meaning that this particular option is, in practice, not available to them).

Looks like most of us State Pensioners here in LOS are going to miss out on an 8% increase in our State Pensions from next April:- https://www.ft.com/content/b83d60d1-8002-47c4-a4a1-f6a1e58e47f0 And no doubt HMRC will seek to tax a fair few of us on the basis of the full increase in the hope that we don't notice this. But at least, all being well, we should be spared the biennial Life Certificate nonsense next year!

But only 1 trip in connection with your Aussie passport, I take it, with your new passport being mailed/couriered to you direct? 2 physical trips are mandatory in the case of British passports, firstly to submit your renewal application and secondly to collect your new passport a number of weeks later. And no physical trips at all to central offices are needed in the case of those who are permitted to apply for new British passports online from a fair few countries (including Malaysia and Singapore in this part of the world), but not Thailand for some mysterious reason.

Easier said than done for the OP if he is not, given that, according to @hotandsticky elsewhere on here, new Government Gateway accounts can these days only be created by those with UK addresses. Personally speaking, I think that it would not be unreasonable to conclude from the OP's (and others' similar) experiences that the UK government as a whole could well be pursuing an agenda aimed at making the lives of us Brit retirees living in LOS just as difficult as is humanly possible, with both HMRC and DWP playing their full part by adding insult to injury to those on frozen State Pensions through taxing them as if they were in receipt of the full whack. And this coming on top of the cumbersomely bureaucratic procedures which have been inflicted on us over the last 10 years or so by DWP and HMPO in the areas of State Pension life certificates and passport renewals respectively. And then we have the Thai government who IMHO have clearly demonstrated, through various actions directed against those of us on annual retirement extensions over the past few years in particular, that they would be more than willing to provide their UK counterparts with whatever assistance they might require in this connection! Rant over!

If by this statement you mean the actual visa itself (rather than the latest 12-month permission to stay granted under it, which in any event should already have been safeguarded with a re-entry permit), you would only, upon your arrival back in Thailand, be granted a permission to stay expiring on the same date as the visa itself (on the basis that this also coincides with the expiry date of the mandatory health insurance policy you obtained for the OA visa). So you can, to all intents and purposes, kiss goodbye to using the OA visa to gain a further 6-month permission to stay, I think. And I would strongly recommend that you delay re-entering Thailand through using your METV visa until after the OA visa has expired, to prevent any potential IMM problems arising at BKK Arrivals, as referred to by @Red Phoenix.

IMHO says it all about the ridiculous procedures we Brits are subject to at passport renewal time these days that we appear to be alone among Western nationals living in LOS in needing to fork out extra for the services of agents to make them bearable!

Which IMHO is pretty meaningless without a list of the 54 provinces affected.

As I pointed out to the Embassy at the time, all that the "extra step" to which you refer should involve for them would be to enter our NI number into a secure online link which they had established with HMRC in order to check that whatever supporting docs we had provided for our income confirmation letters in the form of latest tax returns or P60's matched HMRC's latest records (although P60's are issued by our pension providers, they are required to notify these to HMRC as part of their payroll obligations). A task which should normally take 5 seconds max per income confirmation request to accomplish, plus a further couple of seconds to plonk a suitable stamp for Immigration purposes on our supporting docs, I would have thought. Whilst it would not, of course, be possible for the Embassy to verify future (but only historical) income on this basis, the same is equally true in the case of their Norwegian counterpart according to the OP. Can't speak for the American and Australian embassies, but, as far as their British counterpart is concerned, all that I can say is that, if they consider their officers to be incapable of conducting quick and simple verification checks taking a handful of seconds in each case, it isn't exactly complimentary about said officers' level of intelligence, is it?

The $64,000 question, though, is how long will it take for the provisions of this directive to filter down to officers working on the coal face at BKK and DMK airports in particular.

The following link sets out the procedures for obtaining non-O visa conversions for retirement:- https://www.immigration.go.th/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/9.FOR-RETIREMENT-PURPOSES-50-YEARS-OLD-NON-O.pdf As already said, though, your pal will first need to do a border bounce in order to kill off his non-OA visa.

Well, at least the Norwegian Embassy are still providing an income confirmation service for their expats, in stark contrast to their American, Australian and British counterparts! Makes me seriously wonder why that particular trio of embassies were unable to come up with similar documentary requirements, instead of merely hoisting the white flag of surrender by throwing their arms up in the air and pulling the plug.

The main difficulty to which you refer actually lies with Thai banks rather than Wise. None of them, apart from Bangkok Bank, seem capable, for some mysterious reason, of assigning specific descriptors in statements and passbooks to identify transactions originating from abroad, as per Bangkok Bank's "International transfer" and FTT (standing for Foreign Telegraphic Transfer) descriptors.

Indeed Wise are not a bank - and they are most certainly not covered by the £85k Financial Services Compensation Scheme deposit guarantee which applies to onshore UK banks. IMHO while a Wise account might well provide a stopgap way of dealing with the immediate consequences of onshore UK bank account closures, it would be most inadvisable to treat it as being an alternative permanent long-term solution to UK personal banking needs.

However Barclays' terms and conditions state that they can close an onshore account if they find out that you're not eligible for it, including if "You (or a joint account holder) reside outside the UK or do not have leave to remain in the UK". This implies to me that Barclays at least do have non-resident British nationals in mind. https://www.barclays.co.uk/content/dam/documents/personal/site-hygiene/BAR_9910542_UK 10.18.pdf and scroll down to page 20.

Can definitely confirm that you will be, based on my personal experience of flying from CDG to BKK a couple of months ago. Thankfully I had a valid re-entry permit which did the trick in lieu of a return/onward flight ticket!????

If so then presumably those making EUR/THB transfers are currently being specifically advised by Wise that the xrates upon which their transfers would be based would be subject to short-notice variation (or words to that effect), just as those making GBP/THB transfers were a few months ago when the GBP/THB xrate was yo-yoing violently. Perhaps the OP and/or @KhunBENQ could let us know whether or not this is the case?

Or clearing the cache if the OP hasn't already tried this?

What a load of baloney! In the increasingly electronic and automated age in which we are now living , it is surely possible for NatWest to provide their "great" services to any account holder of theirs living anywhere on this great planet of ours without having to bust a gut!!

What a cheek! Barclays are closing your onshore accounts but expecting you to do their dirty work for them, it would seem!! Suggest that you open an international account with another offshore bank and then close your Barclays one - thus making it possible for you to tell Barclays to get royally stuffed in no uncertain terms!!! EDIT#1: As a matter of principle, would you really want to have an offshore account with a bank which has gleefully closed your onshore ones with them? EDIT#2: Apologies, @scubascuba3, I was actually replying to @doctormann!

In response to Mr Confused, I would merely say that my preceding post sounds crystal clear to me!

I personally would not bank on this still being the case these days. Historic OA visa holders seeking fresh retirement extensions were, generally speaking, not exempted from the mandatory health insurance requirements introduced 4 years ago through any "grandfathering" (except in the case of those obtaining their retirement extensions at the Phuket Immigration Office).

This was certainly made clear to me for the first time when I applied for my latest retirement extension at Rayong in July. I am seriously wondering whether some edict has recently gone out to immigration offices from the Immigration Bureau hierarchy covering both this requirement and also the need for 12-month bank statements in the case of those offices who haven't already been requesting these (this was another unwelcome surprise which was sprung on me last July). Expect more reports on here in connection with other offices, I think!

Another problem with passbook entries, such as I have just experienced with my dedicated Krungsri 800k account, is overprinting.