racyrick

2 hours ago, Pib said:

Transferwise is solid for getting money transferred to your Thai bank account.  I've used Transferwise for a half dozen or so Transferwise and they arrived quickly. 

 

However, if you are looking for specific coding/description on that Transferwise transfer that says it's an "international transfer" in your Thai bank passbook then that may not come true.   A lot will depend on which Thai partner bank Transferwise will use to complete the final leg of the transfer.

 

Transferwise  currently uses three Thai partner banks to accomplish the final leg of the transfer to any bank in Thailand....those partner banks are kinda like intermediary banks.  Those three partner banks are Bangkok Bank, Kaiskorn Bank, and Thai Military Bank (TMB).   If you happen to be transferring to an account you have at Bangkok Bank and Transferwise uses Bangkok Bank for the final transfer leg then chances are high (not 100%) the coding/description will reflect an international transfer. But if Transferwise say uses K-bank or TMB for the final leg over to your Bangkok Bank account then your transfer will not be coded as international.  Regardless of which bank in Thailand your account is with and which partner bank Transferwise decides to use for a transfer the coding/description might change from your last transfer....all depends on how Transferwise routes the money to you for that specific transfer.

 

And it appears that even if Bangkok Bank is used as the partner bank to a Bangkok Bank account  that some recent transfers have been showing up as SMT/SMART vs FTT/International Transfer.  Maybe that was a short term glitch (but the person still got their money).  But glitches can sure destroy an unbroken record of international transfer coding/description...like 12 months worth of international transfers for immigration extension of stay/visa purposes.

 

The coding/description received whether using Transferwise, SWIFT, ACH, etc., can change in the blink of an eye if the sending bank decides to uses a different routing to get the money to you....use a different routing that makes it cheaper for them and maybe you.   

 

You still get the money....the sending bank has done its job.  However, (and preaching to the choir I know) it's just the transfer coding/description may no longer satisfy some other requirement a person may have.  Like coding/description to satisfy immigration if using the monthly income/transfer method for extension of stay/visa purposes "and your immigration office gets anal about seeing such coding on the Thai bank document and not accepting other docs that reflect the international coding/description."   This can make it difficult and somewhat of a crap shoot depending on your immigration office.   

 

Hopefully over the coming months of numerous immigration offices being confronted with extension of stay applicants who have religiously done monthly international transfers but the Thai bank passbook coding/description may not reflect them as international transfers (but indeed they were) that the immigration offices will accept alternate docs that confirm it was an international transfer. 

 

Hopefully they will come to realize with all the different ways and methods to accomplish international transfers (ways/methods that will always be changing in this rapidly changing financial technology world) and only accepting Thai bank docs that clearly state a transfer was international is going to be very problematic/maybe impossible for many people.   People who are truly accomplishing international transfers but the durn Thai bank coding/description does to specifically say it's international...just shows it as any other transfer.  Time will tell.

 

 

 

 

The biggest problem is that Immigration wants a letter from your bank confirming the overseas transfers and obviously the bank can't and won't do that if a transfer is coded SMT for Smart

2 hours ago, wgdanson said:

Here is the reply I got from Transferwise.

 

Thanks for getting in touch.

As spoken, for future transfers, please call in after you have created the transfer on your profile, but before you make your payment, to request for a specific payment route. We'll do our best to accommodate the request but do have to add that we aren't able to confirm it will succeed 100% of the time.

Meanwhile, please see the two attachments in this email. The deposit shows the instructions to make a payment from your UK account to us before we send it out on your behalf as shown in the transfer receipt. Hopefully, this would suffice for the authorities.

If that doesn't work, please try asking the bank to reject the funds back to us so that we can try to send it out again through our other partner, Bangkok Bank.

Hope that helps - if you have further questions, please feel free to ask!

Best regards,

 

Just a little confused on his reply.

Do you create the transfer and confirm to get a transaction number and then call TW or do you just set it up, call TW and then complete and give them the transaction number?

What confuses me is TW saying before you make payment.

The other thread that has extensive info is called-TransferWise International Transfers Heads Up

It is listed on the main page and in the Visa Forum

1 hour ago, wgdanson said:

My last 18 transfers, once a month, have shown FTT in my Bangkok Bank. Did 65k yesterday. Arrived as INTERBANK TRANSFER, and on the Transferwise receipt it shows that it went through Kasikorn Bank. Now off to Bangkok Bank to get paper to show it came from Kasikorn, and to Kasikorn to show it came from Transferwise. Pain in the bum!

What are the names of the papers you ask from both Bangkok Bank and Kasikorn to get the information.

Thanks!

32 minutes ago, SooKee said:

Just had the transfer I set up today come into BKK Bank. FTT - International.

Great to hear!!

Can you please tell me what was the amount you had transferred? This will help a lot.

Thanks!

32 minutes ago, Genericnic said:

An interesting response from TW. This was the case when I initially set up my account about 5 months ago. After I called the first time, they told me that they had contacted the payments team and that my account would be tagged to always go directly to Bangkok Bank with no need to call in the future. The subsequent 3 monthly payments, the last of which was about 8 days ago, went through correctly with no additional calls. All were done on the TW app. 

 

David

Nice to hear, but it seems that the problems have just started about 5 days ago with the transfers.

Hope you have no trouble with your next transfer.

I just received the following email from TW-

Thank you for your message.

For our transfers to Thailand, we have 3 banking partners which are sending the money to our recipients. 

There isn't a specific rule when the system chooses automatically between them for sending out a transfer, but if a sender wants to have his transfer sent by a specific banking partner (for example Bangkok Bank, which shows the transaction as a foreign transaction), after creating the transfer on our website, he will have to contact us and ask for it specifically. That way, we can let our payments team know about the request and they can process the transfer through that specific banking partner.

Please let those people know about this, so that they don't encounter the same issue again. If they don't let us know about the request, we can't guarantee that their future transfers will be sent through the right bank for them. Also, we would need the request for each transfer, because the system can't save this preference for future transfers.

Seems like every reply is different.

Did anybody who received a transfer to Bangkok Bank in the last week personally call TW after they made the transfer to make sure it goes directly to Bangkok Bank?

2 hours ago, SooKee said:

Jeez. Always something isn't there!! My transfers to BKK Bank from the UK have always shown as FTT. I even managed to get them to do whatever they do to ensure that funds will always be sent via Bangkok Bank. No idea if that will still work or not.

My last transfer to Bangkok Bank was 27 June and that showed as FTT. I've just initiated another small transfer to see what happens. What I did notice is that unlike where it normally tells me it will pay out tomorrow the app now tells me they've paid out THB already and it will reach my account within 6 hours. Doubtless the new system.

If this payment doesn't show as FTT that'll be TW off the list of options. That'll leave just 2 for me. OFX, which I have yet to use but which I'm told always shows as international, and Bangkok Bank's own fund sending service which thankfully I took the time to register for when I opened the Bangkok Bank account here in January.

OFX used to be quite a bit more expensive than TW to send money here but having checked today (I haven't compared rates in a while) there's barely anything in it, maybe as a result of TW upping their fees (funny that didn't get quite the same fanfare as when they reduced them around 2 months earlier).

So at least there's two other options, the difference between each I'll work out later if I need to. Then it'll be a case of sit back and wait for the next spanner in the works. It's getting tiresome for sure.

Of course there is the SWIFT option too but that's a no no for me. I use HSBC in the UK and they used to be brilliant a couple of years ago with a flat £4 transfer fee for SWIFT. Then suddenly they changed their banking arrangements and started using an intermediary to transfer to Thailand so your transfers started getting mugged en route. This was made worse by the fact you never knew how much was going to get taken. Send £1,000, pay £4 tx fee, only to find that only £958 had hit your account and got converted. A test I did earlier this year also showed a £100 transfer costing the same £4 and then getting hit by intermediary charges of £12! So even SWIFT can be pricey.

Did you always call TW when you made a transfer to ask them to send directly to Bangkok Bank including the transfer you just made today?

Got it-thanks for everybody's help.

I was just wondering, maybe if we transferred a smaller amount and did multiple transfers, it would go thru directly to Bangkok Bank?

Just a thought. Maybe there is a threshold amount.

2 minutes ago, glegolo said:

No..... what is the name of the thread so I can look it up

 

thanks

glegolo

Headlines-TransferWise international transfers heads up

On the front page and the Thai Visa Forum heading

14 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

a couple things here...

 

1. It's not uncommon for U.S. banks to use what's called corresponding banks to serve as the middlemen in international funds transfers for whatever reason. That could be why Wells went thru Kasikorn, though Wells ought to be able to tell you if they do or don't use a corresponding bank for wire transfers to Thailand.

 

2. Yes, you did get a lousy exchange rate. In doing any kind of international xfer for Immigration purposes, you gotta build in a margin of cushion to cover fees and exchange rate fluctuations (or bank ripoffs as the case may be).

 

3. It's possible, if you get the transaction details from BKKB, you might be able to go to Kasikorn Bank's HQ and get them to issue you something called a credit advice letter that documents the transfer of your funds into Thailand. That MIGHT help with Immigration, but no guarantees.

 

TransferWise has changed they way they do their transfers and everybody is now being coded as a SMART transaction (SMT).

The funds are being run thru K Bank and then to Bangkok Bank.

My question is, if you go to Bangkok Bank and ask for transaction details for the TW transfer with the SMT coding, will it show TW as the sender or that it is an international transfer and went thru K Bank?

Thanks for your help.

16 minutes ago, Thailand said:

Your funds came via Kasikorn Bank to your Bangkok Bank account and there was a charge made by  Kasikorn Bank for the privilege,probably the 451 baht.

 

A statement from Bangkok Bank (Not your local branch) head office will show GPSD Head Office which indicates funds are from abroad.

 

Can you please explain what GPSD stands for?

Also, will a statement from the head office also show that funds were from abroad when you have a SMART code transaction for a TransferWise transfer from the USA?

At worst, will the statement show that TransferWise was the sender?

Thanks

Nice to hear, but I will still wait to see if any other people get their deposits with no problems and at what banks they were sent to, before I apply for this.

I want to make sure all the bugs are worked out and a regular account is ok at any bank to use.

I assume that the Bahtnet code (BTN) in the bank book will be ok for Immigration purposes.

Thanks for keeping us updated!

1 hour ago, SammyJ said:

what bad customer service  i just had the problem today, with my July transfer to my bkk bank account, showing as an interbank transfer via SMART   my previous TW transfers show as international transfers

 

anyone have luck golng to bkk bank to have them confirm it was actually an international transfer or is that a waste of time?

If you go to Bangkok Bank, I suggest you ask the following 2 questions-

1) Does the SMART transfer show TransferWise as the sender?

2) Will Bangkok Bank confirm in a letter for Immigration that the SMART transfer is an international transfer?

Thanks for your help and time.

1 hour ago, pontious said:

I think I read on another thread Bangkok Bank said you would have to confirm with the intermediary bank. My transfer came as SMT yesterday. Extensions based on foreign income is really becoming a PITA.

Are you going to go to Bangkok Bank to confirm the information?

Did anyone ask Bangkok Bank the following 2 questions-

1) Does the SMART transfer show TransferWise as the sender?

2) Will Bangkok Bank confirm in a letter for Immigration that the SMART transfer is an international transfer?

Thanks for your help and time.

On 6/29/2019 at 9:31 AM, oxmermaid said:

This glitch appeared last week, when was the last time you tried the BBL transfer?

What was the amount of your transfer? Thanks

11 hours ago, Dene16 said:

My latest transfer, only today to Bangkok bank, shows as interbank transfer via smart

No longer FTT

Don't know where that will leave everyone?

What was the amount of your transfer? Thanks

53 minutes ago, johnjohn2 said:

Bank Book shows SMT. Which I assume stands for Smart Transfer. Not sure if this is an acceptable code or not.

 

What was the amount of your transfer?

2 hours ago, johnjohn2 said:

Just happened to me today. First time seeing "Interbank Transfer via SMART" Ill be updating my book later today so see what the code is. I imagine not FTT.

I just checked the TW receipt and it appears it got routed through Kasikorn Bank is why.

Please let us know asap.

Very important to all of us.

Thanks!!

4 hours ago, Dene16 said:

My latest transfer, only today to Bangkok bank, shows as interbank transfer via smart

No longer FTT

Don't know where that will leave everyone?

What was the code in your bank book?

The bank book only has rom for a 3 digit code.

Thanks

8 minutes ago, graeme72 said:

I sent money from Aus. on the 28th and it appeared as Dummy Branch.

What bank was it sent to?

I have always sent mine back regular airmail with no problems but, I also mail out another copy with my original signature just in case the first form does not get to them. I mail that out 1 week later than the original.

1 hour ago, Jingthing said:

Nope. In Jomtien. Sorry to be a pessimist but if it doesn't ever arrive is there a way to ask them to send it again?
Yes I realize it's way too early to worry about that but surely it happens.

Sent from my Lenovo A7020a48 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

You can request thru Manila, but they will send another one in September if they do not receive your form back.

25 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

What city are you in?

Khon Kaen