Transferring money from UK to Thailand

[Suradit69]

1 hour ago, PMZ said:

and they will pay THB from a Thai Bank to your Thai bank.

So your bank will not show it as a foreign exchange transaction, which may or may not matter to you.

[scubascuba3]

I use HSBC, they charge GBP4.00 for any amount sent and it arrives within 1 to 2 hours of sending.   I always send in GBP and get an excellent exchange rate when it arrives in my Kasikorn Bank account.

The kasikorn rates are never as good as a TT booth for example or even if use my Clarity card, so its only sensible to transfer amounts too large to withdraw

[CanuckThai]

Sending yourself "ecurrency" is fast and cheap.     Even make some money doing it...if you catch a good spread...

[Wavel]

Please consider using TransferWise you will save yourself a considerable amount of money. No UK bank charges & the amount that you receive in your Thai account, will be greater than the Pound/Bhat Thai bank exchange rate. I have been using TransferWise for about a year & believe me I’m quids in.

[QPRFC]

You can use UKForex to transfer to Thailand with excellent exchange rates. No fees either. 

But you must have a Thai bank account already set up to register the details.

BKK Bank charge 500 baht to receive. 

There are no exchange rates at Thai end as UKForex already change into Baht prior to sending. 

It's fast too, 2-3 business days from start to end. 

[Kurtf]

The only tax you will get is the one they charge you when you convert from pounds sterling to Thai Baht. Approx 1.5 to 2 Baht per pound or in my case per dollar.

[scubascuba3]

Please consider using TransferWise you will save yourself a considerable amount of money. No UK bank charges & the amount that you receive in your Thai account, will be greater than the Pound/Bhat Thai bank exchange rate. I have been using TransferWise for about a year & believe me I’m quids in.

So no charges with transferwise?

[Wavel]

TransferWise the more you send the less commission TransferWise charges. You would save more on 10,000 per pound/bhat ratio than on 1,000.

[nudger]

I use Revolut, buy Thb online (close to XE rate), they transfer to Thai Bank AC free or pay £5 for faster

[scubascuba3]

TransferWise the more you send the less commission TransferWise charges. You would save more on 10,000 per pound/bhat ratio than on 1,000.

The commission Transferwise charge on large transfers work out hefty, no point trying to pretend they are insignificant

[Wavel]

3 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

8 minutes ago, Wavel said:

Please consider using TransferWise you will save yourself a considerable amount of money. No UK bank charges & the amount that you receive in your Thai account, will be greater than the Pound/Bhat Thai bank exchange rate. I have been using TransferWise for about a year & believe me I’m quids in.

So no charges with transferwise?

Log on to their website and see for yourself,it’s easy to make a comparison. On weekdays you will receive your funds in 24 hrs

[scubascuba3]

I use Revolut, buy Thb online (close to XE rate), they transfer to Thai Bank AC free or pay £5 for faster

Does Revolut still class THB as an illiquid currency? So you get a poor rate certainly nowhere near interbank rate, and even worse at the weekend?

[recycler]

Use Transferwise, it's cheaper than the bank.

 

If you are no tax resident in Thailand there is no tax and even if you are a tax payer in Thailand you can still transfer savings.

[MikeN]

21 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

26 minutes ago, Wavel said:

Please consider using TransferWise you will save yourself a considerable amount of money. No UK bank charges & the amount that you receive in your Thai account, will be greater than the Pound/Bhat Thai bank exchange rate. I have been using TransferWise for about a year & believe me I’m quids in.

So no charges with transferwise?

there are charges, but it's on a sliding scale and on smaller amounts it is less than the fixed fee my Australian bank charges. At around $2500 (AU) it is about even, although you still get a better exchange rate with transferwise. I'd guess that at around 3500 $AU the bank would start to be best overall. Transferwise will give you a rebate on your first transfer, so that might even be free depending on how much you are sending.

[keithcresswell]

Transferwise for me too. Normally less than 24hours to complete.

[scubascuba3]

there are charges, but it's on a sliding scale and on smaller amounts it is less than the fixed fee my Australian bank charges. At around $2500 (AU) it is about even, although you still get a better exchange rate with transferwise. I'd guess that at around 3500 $AU the bank would start to be best overall. Transferwise will give you a rebate on your first transfer, so that might even be free depending on how much you are sending.

For small amounts like $3500 can't you just do a withdrawal using a card that doesn't charge commission? The rate you'd get would be better

[MosMing]

3 hours ago, petermik said:

I transfer money online using my Halifax account £9.50 charge for any amount (I make sure I do the transfer in GB pounds) to my Kasikorn account here (money transfer live daily exchange rate) they then take between 300-500 baht in fees......takes just 3 days

Hmm. Now that's strange. I transfer money from my Halifax account in the UK to my Kasikorn account in Udon Thani and it costs me nothing. I send GBP, not THB and Kasikorn charge me nothing for the currency conversion. Halifax always says it's going to charge me £9.50 but it never does. I've got a Halifax Reward account which is maybe why the charge is waived or maybe it's because I'm sending GBP. 

[steve73]

As of right now Kasikorn sell THB at 42.85625 / GBP (TT rate).

Transferwise are offering 43.25953 / GBP (0.94% higher than KTB)

TW fees are 1.50 plus 0.5%.

Then there are the UK bank fees if sending GBP to your Thai bank.

But IMO the real benefit of using TW(or similar services) is that you can see the THB rate you'll be getting, rather than whatever it happens to be when the GBP eventually arrives in Thailand.  Also in the past a bank to bank transfer has taken a full week (5 days) and the rate I received was the lowest that the Thai bank's rate got to in that week..  Like they were holding the money for the full week and exchanging it at the weakest price.

  

[scubascuba3]

As of right now Kasikorn sell THB at 42.85625 / GBP (TT rate).
Transferwise are offering 43.25953 / GBP (0.94% higher than KTB)
TW fees are 1.50 plus 0.5%.
Then there are the UK bank fees if sending GBP to your Thai bank.
But IMO the real benefit of using TW(or similar services) is that you can see the THB rate you'll be getting, rather than whatever it happens to be when the GBP eventually arrives in Thailand.  Also in the past a bank to bank transfer has taken a full week (5 days) and the rate I received was the lowest that the Thai bank's rate got to in that week..  Like they were holding the money for the full week and exchanging it at the weakest price.
  

I would imagine once they receive the cash they do a spot fx 24 hours, maybe worth finding out when your UK bank sent it and it settled. If Kasikorn sat on it for a few days they should give you the rate when they should have done the fx

[Pib]

1 hour ago, MosMing said:

Hmm. Now that's strange. I transfer money from my Halifax account in the UK to my Kasikorn account in Udon Thani and it costs me nothing. I send GBP, not THB and Kasikorn charge me nothing for the currency conversion. Halifax always says it's going to charge me £9.50 but it never does. I've got a Halifax Reward account which is maybe why the charge is waived or maybe it's because I'm sending GBP. 

Kbank does charge a 0.25% (Bt200 min, Bt500 max) incoming international receiving fee which is pretty standard for all Thai banks give or take a little bit.    Below snapshot from the Bank of Thailand webpage which shows X-amount of fees Thai banks report that they charge for various things.   When you look at the Kbank website I don't think they show the fee anywhere because their website is pretty weak in showing all fees they charge....you usually have to call or visit them to ask.

 

 

This fee is applied before they post the converted funds to your account which means this fee will not appear as a transaction on your Kbank passbook or ibanking.....can fool a person into thinking no fee was applied but there was.

This also results in a person wondering why his personal math never works out in trying to figure out the exchange rate he got to  "exactly" match with the TT Buying Rate posted on the bank's currency webpage.

 

Or, when sending the GBP you may be selecting that you pay all fees along the line from the  sending end, which means Kbank will just relay a fee charge back to your sending bank X-days to X-weeks later.  And since Kbank must manually initiate the the charge back to your sending bank it's a higher fee.    But if that was occurring you would see that charge hitting your home country bank account...not to be confused with any upfront sending fee like the 9.50 pounds you mentioned.

 

For folks who use money transfer services like Transferwise the above mentioned fee is not applied because it's treated as a "in-Thailand/domestic transfer" since the final leg of the transfer is from Transferwise's peer-to-peer partner in Thailand. 

[Wavel]

4 hours ago, petermik said:

I transfer money online using my Halifax account £9.50 charge for any amount (I make sure I do the transfer in GB pounds) to my Kasikorn account here (money transfer live daily exchange rate) they then take between 300-500 baht in fees......takes just 3 days

Halifax charges you Kasikorn charges you & the exchange rate is awful.When Robin Hood stole from from you at least he gave the proceeds to the poor. Get it sorted Peter & don’t use the British Banking System,. There stealing from you.

[MrTrip]

Nobody has mentioned Kapook. I’ve only sent small amounts but it’s just so easy. Baht sent to Thai account and available the following day. Not sure how the charges compare as I’ve never shopped around after I found them


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[wgdanson]

5 hours ago, johnson36 said:

 

Does the thai bank not charge any fee for receiving money from Transferwise ?

How much would they charge for receiving britsh pounds from my normal Uk bank account ?

No fee. 

[MikeN]

3 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

3 hours ago, MikeN said:

there are charges, but it's on a sliding scale and on smaller amounts it is less than the fixed fee my Australian bank charges. At around $2500 (AU) it is about even, although you still get a better exchange rate with transferwise. I'd guess that at around 3500 $AU the bank would start to be best overall. Transferwise will give you a rebate on your first transfer, so that might even be free depending on how much you are sending.

For small amounts like $3500 can't you just do a withdrawal using a card that doesn't charge commission? The rate you'd get would be better

You don't know the Australian banking cartel / mafia  system !!!! You would have to pay an overseas transaction fee there, a foreign transaction fee here and it's not going to be a better FX rate than the TT rate they use for an electronic transfer to my thai account. But of course, if you think an 80,000 baht withdrawal is small then you probably do not need to worry about these little things

[simoh1490]

You guys can use Transferwise all you want, me, I'll stick with HSBC at 4 quid a pop plus the receiving fee - it's not useful for small amounts but for amounts of 20k Pounds per transfer it works for me, plus I get the FET AND I get the prefered conversion rate in Thailand which is the banks Treasury rate on amounts more than 1 mill. baht.

[wgdanson]

2 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

You guys can use Transferwise all you want, me, I'll stick with HSBC at 4 quid a pop plus the receiving fee - it's not useful for small amounts but for amounts of 20k Pounds per transfer it works for me, plus I get the FET AND I get the prefered conversion rate in Thailand which is the banks Treasury rate on amounts more than 1 mill. baht.

HSBC 4 quid, Nationwide 20 quid for a Swift Transfer!        Do it into a Foreign Currency Account (Bkk Bank) in GBP, then you can decide when and how much you want to change when the rate is better.

[wgdanson]

4 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

it's not useful for small amounts but for amounts

4 quid to transfer 1000 is 0.4%, on 20k is 0.02%...not worth thinking about.

[scubascuba3]

You need to monitor the rates and transfer when they jump up, it makes a bigger difference than UK bank vs Transferwise. The THB rate was 44.8ish for a couple of days a month ago now 43.

 

The exchange rate seems to always go up then back down within a few days so i usually get some THB when it jumps up

 

 

[riche60]

I also use travelwise app very good cheap and fast

[Sumarianson]

Torfx if transferring from UK.

You can tell them the rate you want and they will exchange when it reaches that rate.

Cannot use this method for buying a condo.

FET ( Foreign Exchange Transaction)  was only relavent to Condo purchase, only a letter from your bank is required now.