Transferring Money - UK to Thailand

[Shoeless Joe]

I have an account with Lloyds TSB bank in the UK and I'm never sure whether it's best to transfer money to Kasikorn bank  in sterling and have them change it to baht. or to use the low Lloyds exchange rate (currently 38.7 baht to the pound). Wahtever method I choose Lloyds will

charge me a transaction fee of £9.50 (approx 360 baht). Also, Lloyds say that transferring money in sterling might mean the transaction takes some days longer to complete. Can this be true?

 

Simple answers would be appreciated.

 

Regards,

 

Joe

Edited February 15, 2019 by Shoeless Joe

[Slap My Nips]

Use TransferWise: https://www.transferwise.com/

 

You can pay either using your Debit Card or using a Faster Payments Bank Transfer and as the money is sent locally, the funds will be in the Thai Bank account within a few hours or 1 working day. 

 

 

[trevoromgh]

Agree TransferWise is best provider of this service and at a reasonable price too and their rate is 39.7 to the pound currently

Edited February 15, 2019 by trevoromgh

[LucysDad]

10 minutes ago, trevoromgh said:

Agree TransferWise is best provider of this service and at a reasonable price too and their rate is 39.7 to the pound currently

 

 

I am seeing 40.05

 

 

How much would you like to transfer?

 

You send

 

• –6.96 GBP
   
• fee
• 993.04 GBPAmount we’ll convert
• ×40.05304

• Guaranteed rate

  Guaranteed rate

  You’ll get this rate as long as we receive your 1,000 GBP within the next 72 hours.
  Learn more

  (72 hrs)

Recipient gets

[sfokevin]

If you need these transfers to show up as "Foreign" on your Thai bank statement for visa renewal purposes note that people have reported that TransferWise transfers do not show up as foreign on some Thai banks statements...

 

https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/1077010-kasikorn-bank-cant-confirm-uk-pension-comes-from-abroad/?do=findComment&comment=13717913

[Slap My Nips]

They shouldn't show up as foreign because normally, Transferwise are transferring from their Thai account after you have paid into their GBP account.

 

If you pay by SWIFT, you can avoid this so it appears as 'foreign'. However, your transfer would then be subject to your Thai banks conversion rate and fees. 

[LucysDad]

4 minutes ago, Slap My Nips said:

They shouldn't show up as foreign because normally, Transferwise are transferring from their Thai account after you have paid into their GBP account.

 

If you pay by SWIFT, you can avoid this so it appears as 'foreign'. However, your transfer would then be subject to your Thai banks conversion rate and fees. 

 

 

My TW transfers are clearly identifiable.... showing as "Dummy branch MCL07416................ and can be cross-referred to the TW statement.

 

 

Clearly identifiable if someone wants to see...

[YoungBrit]

Another recommendation for Transfer Wise. 

[scottiejohn]

Try Western Union, their transfers show as foreign with no fee.

[scubascuba3]

I think using Transferwise is best unless you need proof of International transfer from UK where you should use Lloyds and send £ to Kasikorn. They also charge 300 baht which you don't incur for Transferwise

[eyecatcher]

Transferwise got me out of a hole when I managed to forget password numbers for a credit card and eventually got locked out.

I had a 1000 sent over, the fee exactly as the example above around sick squid.

My bank would have charged 25 and a three day wait.

[Shoeless Joe]

Thank you for your response. However, I need the transfer to be easily idientifiable as a "Foreign" transfer, not "local".

 

Regards,

 

Joe

10 hours ago, Slap My Nips said:

Use TransferWise: https://www.transferwise.com/

 

You can pay either using your Debit Card or using a Faster Payments Bank Transfer and as the money is sent locally, the funds will be in the Thai Bank account within a few hours or 1 working day. 

 

 

 

[Shoeless Joe]

9 hours ago, sfokevin said:

If you need these transfers to show up as "Foreign" on your Thai bank statement for visa renewal purposes note that people have reported that TransferWise transfers do not show up as foreign on some Thai banks statements...

 

https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/1077010-kasikorn-bank-cant-confirm-uk-pension-comes-from-abroad/?do=findComment&comment=13717913

Yes, this is exactly why I'm doing this and with regards to Transferwise, that's my understanding too.

 

Regards,

 

Joe

[Shoeless Joe]

Thank you all for your responses (which are much appreciated) regarding available services for transferring the money.

 

I'm going to stick with Lloyds but I'm still none the wiser regarding whether or not I'm better off (with regards to exchange rates) making the transfer in sterling or baht.

 

Regards,

 

Joe

[scubascuba3]

Thank you all for your responses (which are much appreciated) regarding available services for transferring the money.
 
I'm going to stick with Lloyds but I'm still none the wiser regarding whether or not I'm better off (with regards to exchange rates) making the transfer in sterling or baht.
 
Regards,
 
Joe

The general consensus on many threads for years is to send £

[a977]

11 hours ago, Shoeless Joe said:

Thank you for your response. However, I need the transfer to be easily idientifiable as a "Foreign" transfer, not "local".

 

Regards,

 

Joe

 

Mine transfer wise transfers show as FTT in my passbook and International Transfer on my Bangkok Bank statement, so where's the problem??

[Dante99]

1 minute ago, a977 said:

Mine transfer wise transfers show as FTT in my passbook and International Transfer on my Bangkok Bank statement, so where's the problem??

It does not show that way in all Thai bank books, it is often noted as a domestic transfer.

[robodelfy]

Better than Transferwise if you are an EU/UK citizen is Revolut. Its free to get a card, and you can do bank transfers completely free to many countries including Thailand. 

 

You just get the app on your phone, deposit money using your debit card. Then you can convert it to any other currency. You then have multiple 'accounts' in your revolt app for different currencies

 

I recently transferred some money to my girlfriends Thai Bank account, completely free and arrived in a few days.

 

I should really make a thread about Revolut so people know. It's also free to use the Revolut card anywhere, so I use it at Tops, at the mall etc, 7/11. And you get £200 free ATM withdrawal per month on the free account

 

Hope that helps

[chickenslegs]

6 minutes ago, robodelfy said:

Better than Transferwise if you are an EU/UK citizen is Revolut. Its free to get a card, and you can do bank transfers completely free to many countries including Thailand. 

 

You just get the app on your phone, deposit money using your debit card. Then you can convert it to any other currency. You then have multiple 'accounts' in your revolt app for different currencies

 

I recently transferred some money to my girlfriends Thai Bank account, completely free and arrived in a few days.

 

I should really make a thread about Revolut so people know. It's also free to use the Revolut card anywhere, so I use it at Tops, at the mall etc, 7/11. And you get £200 free ATM withdrawal per month on the free account

 

Hope that helps

Fees are only part of the equation. What exchange rate do they use?

I can get "no fee" transfers from Barclays Bank UK, but I would receive less THB into my BKK Bank account than using Transferwise and paying their fees.

[billd766]

On 2/15/2019 at 10:36 AM, trevoromgh said:

Agree TransferWise is best provider of this service and at a reasonable price too and their rate is 39.7 to the pound currently

I transferred some money from my TransferWise account yesterday at the rate of 40.0418 to the GBP.

 

I sent 1,245 GBP and TW charges me 8.81 GBP.

 

Because the UK is 7 hours behind Thailand the money will not actually be transferred until Monday as the Thai banks don't work at the weekends. The forex rate that TW quoted will be the rate that I get even though the transfer cannot be completed until Monday.

 

I opened a BKK Bank account last month and TW transfers the money to that account where it shows up as an FTT. I simply transfer it to my KBank account at no fee.

 

 

[robodelfy]

2 hours ago, chickenslegs said:

Fees are only part of the equation. What exchange rate do they use?

I can get "no fee" transfers from Barclays Bank UK, but I would receive less THB into my BKK Bank account than using Transferwise and paying their fees.

It uses Interbank rates, and you can choose at any time to exchange to Baht to lock in a rate, or it will just do it automatically when you use your card somewhere or at an ATM. Or for a bank transfer I imagine. Other than that there are no fees

 

I've used it a lot when I travel anywhere, and I've used transerfwise in various situations. Obviously its best to check both and see what works out cheaper, but it seems to be Revolut would certainly be cheaper with no fees and interbank rates. 

 

But its worth having Revolut if you are from a qualifying country and you move around a lot.

[chickenslegs]

If I am reading this correctly, it looks like Revolut charges 1% for THB (2% at weekends). This is from their website ...

Quote

If you exchange currencies on weekdays (Mon-Fri UTC) you will receive the interbank exchange rate without any markup on all currencies except for Thai Baht, Russian Rubbles, Ukrainian Hryvnia, and Turkish Lira where we add a 1% markup, with a small 0.5% fee for anything above £5,000 each month.

On the weekend (Sat-Sun UTC) we fix the rate we provide to protect ourselves against fluctuations, this means we apply markups of:

• +0.5% to all major currencies (ie. USD, GBP, EUR, AUD, CAD, NZD, CHF, JPY, SEK, HKD, NOK, SGD, DKK, PLN, and CZK); and
• +1% to all other currencies including THB, RUB, UAH and TRY. (this means over the weekend THB, RUB, UAH, and TRY have a 2% markup.)

Since the interbank exchange rate is constantly fluctuating, the rate that we lock in for the weekend may not be the same as the rate that is available when the markets open on Monday morning.

 

[robodelfy]

Just now, chickenslegs said:

If I am reading this correctly, it looks like Revolut charges 1% for THB (2% at weekends). This is from their website ...

 

Ah I didn't see that, so I'm sorry if I misled anyone. I've used it for various European countries free of charge, so when I saw they did Thai Baht I assumed the same

 

Still, theres a possibility it may be useful to some if you want a card you can use anywhere. But 1% still adds up quite quickly. I forgot to say dont change on revolution at the weekends because the exchange is closed and so they charge extra to cover themselves