That's another tenner they've cost me!

[Carolina Reaper]

Couldn't you move the equivalent of THB 65K (with a safety cushion to account for possible currency exchange rate fluctuation) in your home country currency into a foreign currency account at a Thailand bank each month? It should satisfy immigration (I don't think money actually has to be Thai baht, just moved to a Thai bank). Then you could move money into a THB account whenever you thought the timing was right (or  potentially even never). Then your tenner would have been "stashed" but not lost. Maybe I'm way off base here, but this seems like a viable option.

 

I know Bangkok Bank offers foreign currency accounts and they should be no more difficult to open by a foreigner than a regular THB account. I'd think most other Thai banks offer those, too.

Edited June 1, 2019 by Carolina Reaper
Further info

[sniggie]

7 minutes ago, Carolina Reaper said:

Couldn't you move the equivalent of THB 65K (with a safety cushion to account for possible currency exchange rate fluctuation) in your home country currency into a foreign currency account at a Thailand bank each month? It should satisfy immigration (I don't think money actually has to be Thai baht, just moved to a Thai bank). Then you could move money into a THB account whenever you thought the timing was right (or  potentially even never). Then your tenner would have been "stashed" but not lost. Maybe I'm way off base here, but this seems like a viable option.

Thanks for your advice. The title of this thread wasn't completely serious. With two occupational pensions I am comfortable, the tenner I mentioned is really neither here or there for me. What is the point, though, is the 'they' I wrote about. There are many 'they's' that have conspired to rattle my comfortable cage.  In no particular order some of them are:

 

David Cameron - for calling a ridiculous referendum.

 

The Foreign and Commonwealth office- for removing the embassy letter when there was no need (purely as cost saving exercise in my opinion).  I'm sure that Thailand was concerned about those countries using affidavits but that's not the method that the UK used.

 

Donald Trump - for causing chaos in the markets, both financial markets and stock markets.

 

Thailand Immigration - for seemingly making unnecessarily tight demands for the income method. Why does it have to be every month, why not quarterly for example? And, of course, the uncertainty that they deliberately cause by not all following the same rules.

 

It just seems a combination of events that are making my comfortable existence less so. I am fortunate enough that I could follow any of the methods helpfully suggested but I don't wish to deposit 800k in the Kingdom, I don't wist to enrich the banks by using SWIFT and I certainly don't want to start using agents. I'm an old man! I just want thing to be like they used to be!!  Who needs changes at my age?  Before anyone jumps on me I'm only joking - a bit.   

[Caine]

Whinging about a tenner, no wonder expats are frowned upon in Thailand. Spenders are what they are looking for.

[OJAS]

1 hour ago, Carolina Reaper said:

Couldn't you move the equivalent of THB 65K (with a safety cushion to account for possible currency exchange rate fluctuation) in your home country currency into a foreign currency account at a Thailand bank each month? It should satisfy immigration (I don't think money actually has to be Thai baht, just moved to a Thai bank). Then you could move money into a THB account whenever you thought the timing was right (or  potentially even never). Then your tenner would have been "stashed" but not lost. Maybe I'm way off base here, but this seems like a viable option.

 

I know Bangkok Bank offers foreign currency accounts and they should be no more difficult to open by a foreigner than a regular THB account. I'd think most other Thai banks offer those, too.

Even with a safety cushion, though, this might prove a risky strategy, depending on whether Immigration calculate the corresponding THB amount of each GBP FTT transfer into an FCD account made over the previous 12 months based on the rate prevailing when either (a) each such transfer was made, or (b) the relevant extension of stay application is subsequently submitted. If (b) were to apply, there could be a very real danger, particularly with the GBP in apparent freefall at the present time, of some previous monthly transfers into an FCD account no longer equalling 65k THB, whereas they equalled (or even exceeded) 65k THB on the basis of the rate prevailing at the time they were made.

[Carolina Reaper]

1 hour ago, OJAS said:

Even with a safety cushion, though, this might prove a risky strategy, depending on whether Immigration calculate the corresponding THB amount of each GBP FTT transfer into an FCD account made over the previous 12 months based on the rate prevailing when either (a) each such transfer was made, or (b) the relevant extension of stay application is subsequently submitted. If (b) were to apply, there could be a very real danger, particularly with the GBP in apparent freefall at the present time, of some previous monthly transfers into an FCD account no longer equalling 65k THB, whereas they equalled (or even exceeded) 65k THB on the basis of the rate prevailing at the time they were made.

So, using the FCD approach with the GBP, the cushion would need to be a 30cm latex mattress. But you still would be able to control the timing of eventual exchange into THB as needed. But if the free fall continues for a long time, there's probably no winning strategy. 

[Andycoops]

On 5/31/2019 at 7:31 PM, Saltire said:

I did a Transferwise transfer today around 8 AM before the pound dropped further and the Thai Baht was in my account at 2 PM today, same day. Suits me as I use the 800k method but I can see your problem!

 

Anyone think the pound will ever recover or are we doomed?

 

 

I always do the TransferWise from UK into my Bangkok bank account at around 0615 and I get their SMS, usually just, after 1400 the same day informing me the money is in my account.

GBP today is below 39 for the first time according to XE.com

Grim.

[Mike Teavee]

On 6/1/2019 at 1:30 AM, Delight said:

 In the short term -say 18 months after a no deal brexit -it will be tough . Probably 35 Baht.

Then it all depends on the skill of UK negotiators.

The aim will be to get a free trade deal with EU.. Goods only.

Gemany will be our biggest ally in this.

WTO  rules will always be bad news for Germany.

Hopefully with the help from the Germans a suitable free trade deal will emerge.

Then the UK can do deals with the rest of the world

Probably buy medication from Thailand. Generic -half price

So for no-deal read multi deal.

Sterling will improve in the medium/long term

Given that the UK's largest export is servies, a Goods Only deal isn't going to reverse the pain.

 

But it's not just Brexit that's causing the GBP to be weak, all major currencies (AUD, USD, SGD) are down against the THB so other factors (e.g. Trade War with China) are hurting it also.

 

Back to the OP: Do you really think that the extra approx £500 pa (before tax) you get in dividends is worth all the hassle/stress? Why not just bite the bullet and move 800K over and forget about it.

 

Edited June 2, 2019 by Mike Teavee

[lamyai3]

26 minutes ago, Andycoops said:

GBP today is below 39 for the first time according to XE.com

Grim.

Record low, after June 1997. 

[jacko45k]

2 minutes ago, lamyai3 said:

Record low, after June 1997. 

It was pretty bad 15/02/19 as well, that is still showing as minimum on my records. Nothing much less than today though. Pretty frightening scenario for me.

[lamyai3]

27 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

It was pretty bad 15/02/19 as well, that is still showing as minimum on my records. Nothing much less than today though. Pretty frightening scenario for me.

This graph of the past few months shows it never quite dropped below 40 before, but agreed - it was right on the brink back in February. In the past day or two it's pushed through the barrier.

 

[jacko45k]

7 minutes ago, lamyai3 said:

This graph of the past few months shows it never quite dropped below 40 before, but agreed - it was right on the brink back in February.

Yeah I usually just grab the first TT rate each morning from SCB posted rates, and have rather retentively been plugging it into an Excel spreadsheet, and have made some plots. ( I showed 15/02/19  -  39.51).
I keep having to adjust the Minimum plot value!!!

[prb]

3 hours ago, Mike Teavee said:

Given that the UK's largest export is servies, a Goods Only deal isn't going to reverse the pain.

 

But it's not just Brexit that's causing the GBP to be weak, all major currencies (AUD, USD, SGD) are down against the THB so other factors (e.g. Trade War with China) are hurting it also.

 

 

IMHO this decade of Quantitative Easing is what has damaged €, £ and $ against other currencies.

 

The day those countries will stop, their currencies will quickly go up against THB.

 

But we are waiting for that to happen since 2013...

 

So, except if Thailand start the same kind of policy or is actively willing to lower the value of the THB, i think we will continue to lose on the exchange rate for the next years and maybe more. 

[the guest]

OOOOOW UK Pounds, are they worth anything these days ?

[anon7854]

Was there any economical explanation for the inflated 1 uk pound to 70 thb exchange rate? Because I'm pretty sure there was none. 

As I'm seeing it things just came back to normal. Brexit just made it obvious.

[prb]

1 hour ago, anon7854 said:

Was there any economical explanation for the inflated 1 uk pound to 70 thb exchange rate? Because I'm pretty sure there was none. 

As I'm seeing it things just came back to normal. Brexit just made it obvious.

Yep, that year the economy of the UK was doing very well, far better than France and the likes, so the 1 GBP for 70 THB or the 1 GBP for 1.4 EUR.

 

The Brexit has wrecked the GBP and damaged the EUR too.

 

And indirectly put the perspective of interest rates increase on hold for a long time.

Edited June 2, 2019 by prb

[lamyai3]

4 hours ago, anon7854 said:

Was there any economical explanation for the inflated 1 uk pound to 70 thb exchange rate? Because I'm pretty sure there was none. 

As I'm seeing it things just came back to normal. Brexit just made it obvious.

This was no flash in the pan. If you look at the chart from the beginning of 1997, you'll see the pound was reliably stable for about a decade. After the Asian financial crash, it settled at a healthy level in the 60s (and briefly up into the 70s) from 1998 until around 2008. The global financial crisis put paid to that, causing a massive slump right down to the low 40s, but from there it recovered somewhat over the following years. Prior to the Brexit referendum in 2016 it had risen back to around 52 or 53, which might be a reasonable expectation of where it would be now, in the absence of the current shambles.

 

[Delight]

11 hours ago, Mike Teavee said:

Given that the UK's largest export is servies, a Goods Only deal isn't going to reverse the pain.

 

Currency movements are mostly as a consequence of speculators.

If they think ,for example the £ will go down then they will sell the £ and it will go down . Others will follow.

Look what happened after just a few Brexit results were in. The £ took a vertical dive,

This had nothing to do with exports.

Thailand has effectively got rid of speculators of the Thai Baht.

They can bring the money in-they can buy and sell currency.

What they cannot do is get the money out.

So the speculators speculate somewhere else.

Suspect that this is inpart the cause of the high Baht.

Thailand seems comfortable with arrangement

Edited June 2, 2019 by Delight

[OJAS]

On 6/1/2019 at 11:36 AM, Carolina Reaper said:

So, using the FCD approach with the GBP, the cushion would need to be a 30cm latex mattress. But you still would be able to control the timing of eventual exchange into THB as needed. But if the free fall continues for a long time, there's probably no winning strategy. 

The only thing that might conceivably resemble a winning strategy is somehow to transfer 65k+ into a THB account each month. Easier said than done, of course. given that the THB is, at the present time, moving inversely proportionately against most other currencies in the opposite direction to the GBP.

Edited June 3, 2019 by OJAS