Cabinet okays plan to inspect e-bank transfers of above Bt50,000

[fulhamster]

12 hours ago, david555 said:

Second thought ….

Could it have something to do with the 65000 a month rule....? As to keep an eye on those ,who plan or do already "the marry go round transfer tour" with the same sum ,  to prove the income method for immigration ??

That may be the proper reason they are doing it.

[hotchilli]

12 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

50'000 Baht.

Paranoid.

Will they hire an army of inspectors?

Just the army !!!

[Bangkok Barry]

13 hours ago, Reigntax said:

A lot of sick buffalos will have their medical treatment delayed

 

Read it again. This is about sending 50,000 overseas, not into Thailand.

[barryofthailand]

I might be mistaken but they said transfers overseas not incoming transfers 

[madmitch]

It's all the expats leaving Thailand and wanting to take their money with them, surely????

[Bangkok Barry]

12 hours ago, overherebc said:

So, a three week holiday in UK with total costs above 50,000 for any transaction like car hire hotel bills blah blah is going to raise eyebrows?

If you and she decide on a business class flight,

55-70,000 baht each what will happen?. Would you have to wait for gov' clearance on the transaction or what?

 

I'm sure that you aren't naive enough to think the authorities in Thailand have the ability to actually think things through. Such questions that you raise would never occur to them.

[jvs]

7 minutes ago, fulhamster said:

That may be the proper reason they are doing it.

Then one inspector we will plenty!!!

[jvs]

Just now, Bangkok Barry said:

 

I'm sure that you aren't naive enough to think the authorities in Thailand have the ability to actually think things through. Such questions that you raise would never occur to them.

Yes, just another somebody throwing out and idea that will be thrown out in a few weeks.

[Longcut]

If I was looking to launder USDs. I certainly wouldn't be looking to change it into Thai Baht.

[Guest]

I am confused:  We need to "provide identification and information to banks" to OPEN the account, and so does everyone in every other country in the world!  What is this second step?  

[madmitch]

3 minutes ago, Longcut said:

If I was looking to launder USDs. I certainly wouldn't be looking to change it into Thai Baht.

I think you have it backwards! It's the baht going out of the country that they're clamping down on.

[Dice Man]

13 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

50'000 Baht.

Paranoid.

Will they hire an army of inspectors?

They will have to. A low limit of _£1500 ?????There will be a deluge!!

[Sumarianson]

They are trusting the Banks to oversee this????? The Banks have always been the biggest money launderers and terrorist / war supporters and financers. They are having a laugh!

[Tomahawk21]

13 hours ago, Chazar said:

same old bs

their gonna be busy 50,000 baht is chum change, be lucky to get a box of descent fireworks for that 555

[Tomahawk21]

26 minutes ago, madmitch said:

It's all the expats leaving Thailand and wanting to take their money with them, surely????

i bet theirs a lot of truth in that

[Tomahawk21]

13 hours ago, overherebc said:

So, a three week holiday in UK with total costs above 50,000 for any transaction like car hire hotel bills blah blah is going to raise eyebrows?

If you and she decide on a business class flight,

55-70,000 baht each what will happen?. Would you have to wait for gov' clearance on the transaction or what?

typical Thailand over reacting as usual, like cleaning prostitution up in Pattaya

[JoePai]

41 minutes ago, overherebc said:

If Somchai and team do 120,000 bahts worth of work extending the house then I might consider a transfer to his Isle of Man bank.

Of course I use cards, but as I posted a few minutes ago interpretation of e transfers just might depend on your banks interpretation of e transfer.  140,000 baht for two BC flights is quite normal at the moment. How will the bank see that if it's going to a non Thai airline.

Puerile, the usual exaggerations, however I will rise to the bait – suggest if your Somchai and team have a IoM account you are paying too much (or maybe conniving with money laundering?) and as for paying for your BC holiday tickets, would suggest you invest in a Credit Card as a safer way to pay

[ujayujay]

13 hours ago, observer90210 said:

Thailand is getting a bit Cheap-Charlie-Somchai.....50k is peanuts today abroad...make it 500k at least please....better open that account in either Singapore or Geneva fast...no hassles or questions asked for (reasonable) amounts transfered upto CHF 50'000,-

Wrong! Amounts over CHF 20K needs declaration in Switzerland.

[Tongjaw]

13 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Individuals who send more than Bt50,000 overseas and the recipient will have to provide their identification and information to banks before the transfer is completed.

I transfer over a lump sum every few

months from my overseas account to my Thai back. 

Is this law only for outgoing transactions only? I didn’t read anything in the article about incoming monies.

[johnarth]

well there are millions of Muslims living here they send money to there home lands so maybe they trying to stop that in a small way

[neeray]

13 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

50'000 Baht.

Paranoid.

Will they hire an army of inspectors?

"Army"! What army? There is no army in Thailand! Never heard of it.

 

Oh wait, you're not talking about that kind of army.

[Ricky J]

Typical,,, more red tape,,,, more Reason for Extra TAXES TO KEEP TRACK OF THE <deleted> RULE,

PEOPLE PAY MORE THAN 50K FOR RENT AND SO ON,,

GOING TO THE DOGS,,,,,

[thaiguzzi]

Funny, first year i moved here in 03 i was in an Isuzu dealers looking at new trucks and was astounded, amazed and shocked as a customer turned up with a plastic shopping bag full of cash (700 odd k) to pay for his new truck...

Nobody batted an eyelid.....

Any place where large amounts of money are dealt with, still have cash counting machines; Kubota tractor dealer, fertilizer supply shop, big bike showrooms, 2nd hand car dealers etc etc....

Cash is King.

[dallen52]

The old Gotcha...

 

Get you to put 800,000 or 400,000 in your thai retirement account and then put monitoring restrictions on moving 50,000 or more out of ...

[Kerryd]

Yeah, 50,000 is sounds way too low. Sheesh, even in Canadian that's less than $2,200 ! However, this isn't about "expats", it's about Thais.

In Canada, the limit used to be $10,000 (same in the US) before the transaction had to be reported but that may have been when it was first brought in, the minimum amount may have been raised since then. I remember when I was doing wire transfers to send money from my Thai account back to my Canadian bank I would do it at $9,950 per transfer to avoid any hassles.

 

But last summer I had my Canadian bank wire way more than that to my Thai bank and the only thing they asked was what the money was for (I told them it was to purchase a condo). No hassles, no extra paperwork, no extra red tape. Got back to Thailand and the only thing I had was a statement from the bank showing the transfer had been deposited into my Foreign Currency Account.

And I highly doubt this has anything to do with "expats" and the money they send (to or from) Thailand. Sheesh - why is it that so many of them (expats) seem to think that Thailand has nothing better to do than to pry into the lives of the small number of expats that make wire transfers (to/from) the country ?
Apparently some (many/most/almost all) of them are under the delusion that Thailand's economy is entirely dependant on the tiny amount of money they contribute to it and that the country would collapse if they all suddenly move (like so many of them threaten to do so often).
Get over yourselves. 

One of the reasons for this new initiative was clearly stated in the OP:
"According to international standards, Thailand has been found lacking on 17 issues in relation to preventing money laundering and the financing of terrorism."
 
Let me guess - more than a few of you think that is just a cover story and the real purpose is to spy on a couple thousand expats that make transfers every month because Thailand's economic fate depends on it.

One also has to remember that, while 50,000 baht seems like a small amount (to a lot of expats at least), to your average Thai (middle/lower class) it is a large sum. At 500 baht/day, 6 days/week wages, that equals a little over 12,000 a month in wages (as most months have more than 28 days in them). Before taxes and expenses.
So 50,000 baht would equal 4 months wages for a lot of Thais. That's a third of an entire year's gross salary.
Even if you doubled the wage to 1,000/day, you'd still be talking almost 2 months gross wages.
For most Thais, 50,000 baht is a lot of money.

 

So a 50,000 baht reporting limit would make sense - when you consider they are not "profiling" expats with this plan. However, expats that do make transfers would also fall under the legislation as it would be based on the amount transacted, not on who transacted it or their nationality.

I suspect the legislation will apply to large sums coming in to the country as well (even though the article only mentions monitoring money leaving the country).
Wouldn't make sense to only monitor transactions leaving the country (I imagine that would be among the "17 issues" that they've been found lacking on).
The 50,000 limit would probably be changed upwards (quickly) if they started getting a deluge of paperwork from all those hundreds and hundreds of expats that actually do get 65,000 a month transferred to their Thai banks (and aren't using an Income Letter). The very few expats that transfer that much out of the country wouldn't even be a tiny blip on the radar (and certainly wouldn't be enough to warrant new legislation on their own).

However, in a lot of countries there are "charities" whose main purpose is to collect funds (tax free of course) which are then transferred overseas and then transferred again into the hands of various terrorist groups. 

Like how Ahmed Khadr, father of Omar Khadr, used charities he set up in Canada to funnel money to Al Qaeda, who used that money for things like blowing up an Embassy in Pakistan in the 90's (amongst other terrorist activities). Khadr's charities were supposedly meant to "help refugees" and "build orphanages" but it seems a lot of the money collected went straight to Al Qaeda. No surprise that Ahmed was quite friendly with the senior Al Qaeda leadership. At one point his family was living in the same compound as Osama's family and their kids were playmates.When America invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, Khadr was high on their priority list to capture/kill as he was considered to be a senior Al Qaeda financier thanks to all the money he acquired for them using those "charities".

Considering how Thailand is supposedly so worried about terrorism (what with the SIM card registration business and the TM.30 business and so on), they'd probably want to be watching to see if large sums are being transferred into the country as well. It wouldn't just be about terrorism though. Money laundering from drug dealers as well as "political" activities would also be a concern.

Like say perhaps if certain wealthy individuals hiding out overseas were sending large sums of money to groups within the country in order to try to "buy" an election (again) or to foment unrest in the country (again).

 

So yeah, I highly doubt they even considered resident "expats" at all when they made this plan.

But feel free to claim that "This is the last straw !" and "They are trying to force us out !" and "This will ruin their economy !" and of course "I'm leaving and never coming back !" because you think that everything the government does is aimed (personally) at you ! ????

(Don't let the hong nam door hit you in the @55 as you leave !) 
 

[kentrot]

BANKS - I HATE THEM !

********************

I have been receiving my monthly pension from Canada into my BANGKOK BANK account for 16 years.

It has arrived on the last day of the month , before noon , like clockwork, every month  for - as I say - 16 years.

 

However for the past 3 months, the money is being held back and not transferred to my account for 24 and sometimes 48 hours. I have spent quite some time trying to determine why this change in automatic deposit  routine has taken place. After lengthy and expensive long distance calls to my Canadian pension (one of the biggest pension funds in the world) , I am assured that the money is still sent to Thailand as always and should be in my account on the last day of the month.

 

BANGKOK BANK operators tell me that the money NOW has to go through a 'Central Bank' and that is the reason for the delay.

it was also suggested that they are trying to dissuade any illegal money laundering. Fair enough.

I also learned that they have between 7,000 and 10,000 international transfers per day.  

 

Ahhhaaaa - that is where the penny drops .... Imagine that you can hold onto somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10,000 transfers of , lets say 100,000 Baht for 24 hours. That's 1,000,000,000 Baht per day sitting in your international transfer "hands". That is a lot of temptation. Maybe too much.

 

And so I wait and wait and wait for my hard earned pension which eventually arrives in my account 2 days later than usual.

And i wonder  what that money was up to for the past 48 hours ?

[Lucky100]

So what happens with 800,000 in thai bank for retirement visa if people want to leave and take their money elsewhere??

[Max69xl]

14 hours ago, Cadbury said:

Big Brother is watching you. The Prayut government is learning fast about the communist Chinese CCTV surveillance and banking systems. 

Farang expats by default will always be primary suspects. 

 

 

 

The money laundering rules regarding money transfers applies for every western country when transferring money abroad. It has nothing to do with Thailand only. Don't be so paranoid.

[wreckingcountry]

The money laundering rules regarding money transfers applies for every western country when transferring money abroad. It has nothing to do with Thailand only. Don't be so paranoid.

Not for less than. 2000$.


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[Thaifriends]

This is normal except amount which should be at least THB150K.

Banks must report to central bank. Of course all required identifications are provided in the past also so whats new in the news?

 

Even cash deposit above a limit is reported to CB which is normal.