OJAS

Is there not some charitable organisation in Australia which the OP's neighbour could turn to for assistance if he needed it, similar to Heathrow Travel Care which Brits returning to the UK in dire circumstances can turn to? http://heathrowtravelcare.co.uk/who-we-are/about-heathrowtravelcare/

Agreed. The OP's experience sounds similar to the treatment frequently meted out to Thais and other aliens wishing to enter our home countries by local immigration officers there. But in the eyes of some on here it would appear that it is only Thai immigration officers who are to be demonised for doing their job, whereas our home country immigration officers, on the other hand, are, in their view, worthy of fulsome praise in identical circumstances.

Looks like first cups of coffee have now been consumed at Wise!????

So does not having to make 2 enforced trips to Bangkok at passport renewal time for us Brits for "absolutely no bloody reason" except to please some archaic British system at least equally (if not considerably more as it should IMHO) get your back up?

Assuming that you are planning on making the transfer from a home country bank account, I would have thought that it will be for whoever is your home country bank's Thai partner bank (which may not necessarily be the same as the Thai bank with whom you hold the account to which the transfer is ultimately destined) to issue you with the necessary certificate after they have processed the transfer - although I do stand to be corrected on this. However, before processing the transfer, the Thai partner bank may require you to complete a Foreign Exchange Transaction Form (see link below), just as I had to a few years ago in the case of a particularly large transfer from my UK to Thai accounts:- https://pic.bankofchina.com/bocappd/thailand/201705/P020170525615529265916.pdf

And a rather more rapid decrease in the number of seats in banks and immigration offices within existing totals with X plonked on them, hopefully.