Thai Citibank requirements

[tideout]

I know different banks have been mentioned in regard to deposits for retirement visas. I'm interested in Citibank in Thailand for the deposit. I'm currently a US citizen with temporary residence in another S.E. asian country where I work. Looking to transition and Citibank seems like a good bank to go with for low cost transferring and is international. I'm visiting BKK in the coming months and wonder if it's even possible to set up an account while visiting? Any idea on requirements? Thanks in advance.

[Langsuan Man]

Do you want to limit retiring to Bangkok ?

 

Because if you choose CitiBank that will be your home branch and that is where you are going to have to go to obtain proof of funds in the bank for retirement purposes 

 

You have plenty of time once you arrive for good to select a bank and despite the hype CitiBank's are run more like franchises than branches of an International Bank.  So your assumption that it will be easy to "transition" over is not really valid.  Having a CitiBank Thailand account  makes nothing any easier for dealing with CitiBank

 

I had a CitiBank account in Bangkok and one in the US and when I used an ATM machine at a CitiBank branch in Frankfurt I was not only charged a foreign currency exchange fee but an additional fee for not using my home CitiBank ATM.  And their International Wire fee's are some of the highest in the industry    

[tideout]

On 12/7/2018 at 5:50 PM, Langsuan Man said:

Do you want to limit retiring to Bangkok ?

 

Because if you choose CitiBank that will be your home branch and that is where you are going to have to go to obtain proof of funds in the bank for retirement purposes 

 

You have plenty of time once you arrive for good to select a bank and despite the hype CitiBank's are run more like franchises than branches of an International Bank.  So your assumption that it will be easy to "transition" over is not really valid.  Having a CitiBank Thailand account  makes nothing any easier for dealing with CitiBank

 

I had a CitiBank account in Bangkok and one in the US and when I used an ATM machine at a CitiBank branch in Frankfurt I was not only charged a foreign currency exchange fee but an additional fee for not using my home CitiBank ATM.  And their International Wire fee's are some of the highest in the industry    

Yeah, I wasn't looking to limit myself to Thailand despite my interest in it. It sounds like ATM fees aren't particularly comparable but I was thinking more along the lines of getting a Citibank account in the SE country where I'm living now and then just doing an "internal" transfer from HCM to a BKK Citibank.

 

Sounds like you're saying there's little or no advantage to doing it early then. Appreciate the response.

 

Last remaining question - it sounds like it may vary from city to city or even branch to branch but what do they (generally) require to open an account then?

[hello55060]

To open an account at Citi, I went to the branch next to terminal 21 building in Feb 2018 (asoke intersection next to mrt station). They wanted a 1-year lease agreement, passport and a 1 million baht deposit. And you get assigned a personal sort of account manager (who I've never had to bother using). No work permit needed. To add with Citi I opened a normal bank account so like a debit account and 4 different savings accounts, one for £, $, SGD and THB as I have quite a bit of money scattered around in different currencies and easier to transfer say from my Citi bank SGD to my Thai Citi account. 

 

Places like Krungsri and UOB in Jan 2018 I could open with just a 50k baht deposit, probably could have opened with less, I just thought more chance of getting a bank as the experience varies between bank to bank and some are adamant you need a work permit, some are okay so I try to offer a reasonable deposit to give myself more of a chance. I opened Krungsri in the Emquartier branch and UOB at the central festival. It took me 2 different branches of Krungsri and UOB to open as the originally refused without work permit, just aim for a foreigner-friendly one ie. where lots of farangs stay. Citi bank I opened on the first try though and just had to wait 5 days for my card as that has my name on it whereas Krungsri and UOB issue on the day and the name will just be 'privileged member' generic crap so you don't have to wait.

 

Hope that helps.

Edited December 8, 2018 by hello55060
info

[tideout]

On 12/8/2018 at 12:58 PM, hello55060 said:

To open an account at Citi, I went to the branch next to terminal 21 building in Feb 2018 (asoke intersection next to mrt station). They wanted a 1-year lease agreement, passport and a 1 million baht deposit. And you get assigned a personal sort of account manager (who I've never had to bother using). No work permit needed. To add with Citi I opened a normal bank account so like a debit account and 4 different savings accounts, one for £, $, SGD and THB as I have quite a bit of money scattered around in different currencies and easier to transfer say from my Citi bank SGD to my Thai Citi account. 

 

Places like Krungsri and UOB in Jan 2018 I could open with just a 50k baht deposit, probably could have opened with less, I just thought more chance of getting a bank as the experience varies between bank to bank and some are adamant you need a work permit, some are okay so I try to offer a reasonable deposit to give myself more of a chance. I opened Krungsri in the Emquartier branch and UOB at the central festival. It took me 2 different branches of Krungsri and UOB to open as the originally refused without work permit, just aim for a foreigner-friendly one ie. where lots of farangs stay. Citi bank I opened on the first try though and just had to wait 5 days for my card as that has my name on it whereas Krungsri and UOB issue on the day and the name will just be 'privileged member' generic crap so you don't have to wait.

 

Hope that helps.

Thanks for taking the time to respond - much appreciated. Certainly 50K baht sounds quite a bit more reasonable than a mil. baht. I guess if you shop around you can eventually get an account going. I'm guessing that quite a few people get started with some kind of work permit....looks like that paves the way more than some other approaches.

Cheers.

[FarangRimPing]

I've had a Thailand Citibank Gold account for many years.

 

The advantage is that I can transfer funds between Citibank US and Citibank Thailand accounts instantaneously. No Transfer fee charged. Their service is also good.

 

But that's about it.

 

The bad. FX rates are horrible for the transfers. Transferring money domestically from Citibank Thailand to any Thailand bank, such as Bangkok Bank, SCB, etc, requires 2 business days. They don't have locations other than Interchange 21. And even though they have my US SSN and annually issue and report 1099's direct to the US government, they don't allow me to buy an LTF or RTF from them. The Personal Assistant said it was because of the US reporting requirements even though they already have the info and already submit to some reporting to the US.

 

Bottom line is that I mostly use my other domestic Thailand accounts instead of Citi.

[Mike85]

I had an account with Citibank Thailand for 5 years or so. Their preferred opening balance is 1Mil. Baht, but the fact is, that they will allow you to open account with virtually no balance or very small balance. The problem is, that if you keep less than 200.000 THB across all your accounts, you are charge 300 THB monthly for maintenance fees.

I like to avoid that, so I do keep the required minimum. The good thing is that this minimum is for across all accounts including THB, EUR, USD, other number of currencies and Mutual funds. So maintaining 200.000 is not that horrible.

Citibank is great for me for the following; ATM cards do not charge any fees when used anywhere in thailand (any banks atm anywhere within Thailand). Other Thain banks tend to offer you free withdrawals only on their own ATM network, but only within the province you opened the account with. So if you opened Bangkok Bank account in Bangkok, and take money out at the Bangkok Bank ATM in Phuket, you will be charged a small fee (20 THB or so). With Citibank, this cross province withdrawals do not matter - all free.

The second good thing is their "global wallet", where you can hold foreign currencies on your account and spend those currencies when travelling as a local (no fees). 

 

I have also noticed that incoming electronic wires from abroad do not incur additional charges as oppose to Bangkok Bank for example where things like this have a fee.

 

On the other hand, having account with Bangkok Bank, SCB or some other Thai retail bank is good, as sometimes when you want to deal with something "local" like topping-up your mobile phone or paying for local Air-asia flights, they will only offer "cheap" payment options for Thai banks, and Citibank is never listed on those websites. So for example, booking of Air Asia Thailand flights costs about 75 THB if you have a local bank account, but close to 300 THB if you use international payment cards for the same transaction. Small savings like this really add-up.