Opening a Bangkok Bank bank account

[scubascuba3]

As there will most likely be a scrum to open accounts soon, it would be good to hear what was required.

 

Please confirm what documentation was required.

 

In the list below from their website they suggest you need to own a condo whereas many people will be renting.

[wgdanson]

A reference letter issued by .................................director of a private company? Your local bar owner?

[scubascuba3]

A reference letter issued by .................................director of a private company? Your local bar owner?

Exactly, ridiculous requirements, perhaps they will be flexible, depends on the branch sadly and person no doubt

[dabhand]

Suggest you go into your local branch and take it from there.

 

I opened a new account with BB a couple of months back. This was in East Pattaya. Only needed following:

Passport (UK)- with retirement extension

Thai Driving Licence - presumably address confirmation

My current SCB Savings account passbook - the branch took copies, maybe this acted as a 'trusted company', don't know

 

They took various copies and I signed a number of documents, they set up the mobile app and I agreed to pay Bt400 for a MasterCard debit card/atm card. Also set up Sms notifications.

 

Took about 30 minutes. Very professional and have been transferring sums from UK via Transferwise (main reason for setting it up) with bankbook updates showing as FTT.

 

So far, so good. Will be looking out for reports that BB provide foreign transfer confirmations acceptable to Immigration in the coming months.

[scubascuba3]

Suggest you go into your local branch and take it from there.
 
I opened a new account with BB a couple of months back. This was in East Pattaya. Only needed following:
Passport (UK)- with retirement extension
Thai Driving Licence - presumably address confirmation
My current SCB Savings account passbook - the branch took copies, maybe this acted as a 'trusted company', don't know
 
They took various copies and I signed a number of documents, they set up the mobile app and I agreed to pay Bt400 for a MasterCard debit card/atm card. Also set up Sms notifications.
 
Took about 30 minutes. Very professional and have been transferring sums from UK via Transferwise (main reason for setting it up) with bankbook updates showing as FTT.
 
So far, so good. Will be looking out for reports that BB provide foreign transfer confirmations acceptable to Immigration in the coming months.

Good point about the Thai driving licence, mine has my old address so perhaps I'll wait until i get my new driving licence in March, avoids any confusion or excuse to decline

[pgrahmm]

1 hour ago, dabhand said:

Suggest you go into your local branch and take it from there.

 

I opened a new account with BB a couple of months back. This was in East Pattaya. Only needed following:

Passport (UK)- with retirement extension

Thai Driving Licence - presumably address confirmation

My current SCB Savings account passbook - the branch took copies, maybe this acted as a 'trusted company', don't know

 

They took various copies and I signed a number of documents, they set up the mobile app and I agreed to pay Bt400 for a MasterCard debit card/atm card. Also set up Sms notifications.

 

Took about 30 minutes. Very professional and have been transferring sums from UK via Transferwise (main reason for setting it up) with bankbook updates showing as FTT.

 

So far, so good. Will be looking out for reports that BB provide foreign transfer confirmations acceptable to Immigration in the coming months.

Same here....Went to one BB and they wanted a consulate letter (even though I had passport <retirement visa>, Thai licence & recent residence cert)....They also had sample (actual other customers letter copies they said I could take a picture of to copy <not too secure for the other customers>)....

 

Went to the next one down the road & was signed up just like dabhand related above......Done in 30 minutes by a smiling, friendly, pleasant, and pretty gal with the same items that weren't enough at the first branch I tried.....

[dave s]

I have two accounts with Bangkok Bank. One is a special account with their New York City branch, that USA social security is (currently, at least) willing to do direct deposit into. Each time the money arrives, you need to physically go to the bank with your passport to prove you are still alive and thus entitled to the benefit money. Then they will move it to your ordinary savings account and you can do what you want with it. This is why you cannot get an ATM card for the NYC account. This restriction may only apply to pension deposits, but other kinds of transfer probably do not have the right kind of automated clearing house packet.

 

I live in Kathu. All of the offices except the one in downtown Phuket on Phang Nga Road are "microbanks" and will refuse to do anything to help out with anything. At the end of September, I opened the two accounts downtown, and deposited the first paper benefit checks, which were marked as foreign funds in the passbook. Baltimore takes up to 10 days to activate direct deposit, so I got one more paper check from October 3, and deposited that as foreign funds. Since November 3 the deposits have shown up automatically as "FFT".

 

In October I got a tourist visa in Laos, and converted that at the main immigration office on Phuket Road to start the retirement process. I used TransferWise to send enough from my USA credit union to the BB savings account so the monthly pension plus the initial checks plus the TransferWise amount added up to 800,00 baht. TransferWise showed up as a foreign funds transfer. The immigration officer had no complaints.

 

I had a passport, work permit and a police department address letter when I went to the main BB office. There is an instruction manual in Thai that the bank manager refers to, which has 11 year old dates in the examples, and is apparently wrong in several ways; she will need to call the Bangkok headquarters several times. When you are first approved by social security, you get a letter about your benefits, and again when something changes, e.g. when I got Medicare B, and a couple weeks ago about a 2.8% cost of living increase; BB eventually accepted this letter instead of a social security card (you cannot get a replacement SS card without a "mysocialsecurity" online account, and you cannot sign up for that without a valid USA address).

 

Ask for the foreign transfer alert on your NYC account, and each month you will get an SMS with an amount US$5 less than what the SSA deposited in the New York branch, the exchange rate by which that amount was converted to baht, and a local fee for posting the baht to you account (a percentage of the funds transferred, minimum B200, maximum B500). The exchange rate is close to what the xe.com web site reports. You need these numbers to make sense of the final amount you see in your passbook or online banking. So far the foreign funds alert SMS has agreed exactly. There is an activity alert which sends you an information-less SMS every time you do something on your ordinary savings account, and initially they set this up instead of the foreign funds transfer alert, so I did not get one for November 3. But they can print out this information at the Phang Nga branch, if you insist.

 

This is Thailand: your mileage WILL vary.