Opening a bank account

[John Kassow]

I need some advice. I'm here on a properly obtained retirement extension but I have become frustrated with the exorbitant fees charged for everyday banking by Bangkok Bank. If you can help I'd appreciate two bits of advice:

1) A bank that offers either low fees or one annual fee for everyday banking

2) Required documents for opening a new account

Thanks for any help offered. FYI I reside in Bangkok.

[Vacuum]

5 minutes ago, John Kassow said:

I have become frustrated with the exorbitant fees charged for everyday banking by Bangkok Bank

What are those fees?

[noise]

Vacuum beat me to asking that question.   I effectively never get charged fees other than minor ones.

 

 

[John Kassow]

It seems that I get charged 25 baht per transaction, and I make a lot of small transactions. The thing is that I am charged for this only once per year as a lump sum, and was surprised to see the money missing from my account. I just paid last year's fees which added up to more than 8,000 over two accounts. Is this reasonable or am I being unrealistic?

[mahjongguy]

That sounds like checking accounts to me.

[scubascuba3]

It seems that I get charged 25 baht per transaction, and I make a lot of small transactions. The thing is that I am charged for this only once per year as a lump sum, and was surprised to see the money missing from my account. I just paid last year's fees which added up to more than 8,000 over two accounts. Is this reasonable or am I being unrealistic?

My annual Kasikorn fee is 200 baht total.

Was your account set up outside of Bangkok? if so they may be charging you 25 baht per withdrawal for another province.

 

Phone Bangkok Bank and ask

 

[Wallander4]

TMB All Free account - 500 baht to open but everything free, eg. other banks ATM etc

 

[MikeN]

If you are just using an Bangkok Bank ordinary savings account with an attached debit card for your “everyday banking” you should not be paying those sort of annual fees. From memory I pay 200 baht a year for the card fee, plus a small fee of 35 baht for some ATM transactions, such as paying my rent into my landlords account at a different bank. But they are charged at the time, not annually.

 So what sort of account do you have, as it does not sound like an ordinary “everyday” account.

[Pib]

OP,

  I'm really scratching my head over your posts.  

2 hours ago, John Kassow said:

It seems that I get charged 25 baht per transaction, and I make a lot of small transactions. The thing is that I am charged for this only once per year as a lump sum, and was surprised to see the money missing from my account. I just paid last year's fees which added up to more than 8,000 over two accounts. Is this reasonable or am I being unrealistic?

Where you say "it seems"....does that mean you are not sure?  Then you say it only charged once per year for more than 8000 baht over two accounts.   You sure you don't have some direct debit by some company for some service (not Bangkok Bank) set up that is deducting the money.   Kinda sounds like you are being billed by someone other than Bangkok Bank bank.  

 

"If" you have a regular savings account with debit card the only charges from Bangkok Bank would be the annual debit card fee which is Bt200-300 for a regular card, but can be higher if you got some special debit card that comes with additional benefits like some kind of insurance coverage......but normally the annual fee for such a "special debit card" would be significantly less than Bt1000 per year.  

 

Using your debit card to withdraw funds "outside your province/banking region" would incur approx a Bt20 fee per transaction but that is charged immediately...not saved for annual billing.

 

And if you have SMS service I think the monthly fee for that is around Bt20.

 

Go visit you branch and ask what the fees are specifically for as for a typical savings account with regular debit card the costs are mentioned above.   

 

 

 

 

[steve73]

I know a few people who have opened BBL accounts recently (past few years) and have all be told they MUST take out accident insurance with them (at around 5k/year, with automatic renewal). 

I want to open a BBL so that my Transferwise are more likely recorded as Intl, but not if I have to pay for all these unnecessary extras.

Currently, Kasikorn charges me 250bt/year for my ATM card, and very occasionally 10bt "fees" for ATM withdrawals, just 5x from 60 uses of my card during 2018.  I don't know why only some are charged, but mostly not.. All are within my "home" province.

[klauskunkel]

2 accts with bkk bank and 2 accts with SCB. No charges whatsoever. I declined ATM cards, have one credit card with BKK bank. Internet banking free. No charges to pay bills, or to transfer money between accts, or to transfer money to someone else's acct within the country.

[AAArdvark]

7 hours ago, klauskunkel said:

2 accts with bkk bank and 2 accts with SCB. No charges whatsoever. I declined ATM cards, have one credit card with BKK bank. Internet banking free. No charges to pay bills, or to transfer money between accts, or to transfer money to someone else's acct within the country.

Question, without ATM cards, how do you manage daily cash expenses or do you just go to the bank and withdraw enough to last a while?

[moana]

12 minutes ago, AAArdvark said:

Question, without ATM cards, how do you manage daily cash expenses or do you just go to the bank and withdraw enough to last a while?

Most banks support cardless ATM access nowadays, using an app for authentication.

I think BBL specifically are behind and haven't set it up yet though.

[AAArdvark]

1 minute ago, moana said:

Most banks support cardless ATM access nowadays, using an app for authentication.

I think BBL specifically are behind and haven't set it up yet though.

Is that any safer?  And, what percentage of ATM machines will they work at?

[moana]

Just now, AAArdvark said:

Is that any safer?  And, what percentage of ATM machines will they work at?

For the banks that set it up, it works on all machines (it's a software update, they don't need to change any hardware). You simply choose "Cardless ATM" at the opening screen instead of inserting your card.

 

It's certainly safer as there's no way to skim the non-existent card.

[klauskunkel]

1 hour ago, AAArdvark said:

Question, without ATM cards, how do you manage daily cash expenses or do you just go to the bank and withdraw enough to last a while?

Exactly. 

[Kerryd]

I've been dealing with Bangkok Bank for 14+ years now and have never been charged additional fees except when I've made a cash withdrawal from another bank's ATM.

Don't recall ever being charged an annual fee (on any of my accounts) and have NEVER been pushed to pay for any kind of insurance (but then I already have 2 policies with them). Before I took those though, they never pressured me or told me I had to do anything.

The bank should be able to easily explain what the charges are. I highly doubt they are tallying up a bunch of small charges over the course of a year and then billing you for them at one time. 
I know that "back home" some banks have accounts where you get a better interest rate but are limited to the number of transactions you can do per month and anything above the limit results in a "per transaction" fee - which are billed either as they occur or monthly at most.
Other accounts waive the fees if the balance is maintained above a certain amount but if the balance drops below the threshold, then the fees are applied.

 

However, with Bangkok Bank it's never been an issue even when I've let the balance (in my regular Savings account) drop down to under 10k. Never been dinged with an "annual" fee for my debit card or any other additional charges (other than the "other ATM" fees of course).

So I'd say you may have an automatic payment set up for something that is billed once a year or you've been clicking on SMS messages on your phone and accepting things (like "Daily Horoscopes sent directly to your phone !" that add fees to your phone bill. Normally that would be paid monthly as well (if, for example, you have your phone bill being automatically paid from your bank).

Whatever the case - the bank would be the ones who could actually explain it, especially when no one here (besides yourself) has probably seen your bank book so can't see what the "charges" are.
For example - if we saw "5,000 cash withdrawal" and the code for "other ATM" and below that a 25 baht fee, then it would be easy to figure out that you have been making cash withdrawals at ATMs belonging to other banks and that is why you are getting charged those extra fees, which is pretty much standard everywhere (yes, including most banks "back home").
But without knowing what transactions you are doing so frequently or seeing some examples of the fees being deducted in your bank book, it's kind of hard to speculate about what the actual problem could be.