I would like to share the result of my research in finding an economical way to transfer and exchanging money into Thailand.

Like many here I have had the need to get 800000 Baht into my local account for my retirement visa. I have USD in my US Charles Schwab brokerage account and a Baht account with Krung Thai Bank. My finding indicates that for medium to higher sums using the now many money transfer services available online is more expensive than going through traditional bank wire transfers. I have compared a number of P2P like Transferwise as well as currency exchanging/trading companies like OFX against Krung Thai Bank and Bangkok Bank.

The final cost all inclusive has been 0.446% above the straight mid-market exchange rate.

The 116 USD total cost includes the 500 Baht (0.25% of transfer, up to max 500 Baht) that most Thai banks apply for incoming wires but does not include any intermediary bank fee (there was none in my case) and the sending wire fee (25 USD) which Charles Schwab waves for its customers.  

The Krung Thai Bank mark up on the mid-rate was only 0.38%. The Bangkok Bank quoted rate was higher at 0.58%.

I arranged with KTB to be called when the funds arrived in their system and negotiated a rate a bit better than the standard +0.4%.

The good news is also that the transfer took only one day. In the night I sent the wire and verified it over the phone and later in the morning next day the funds were in my KTB account. Very hard to beat.

The closest competitor was Currencies Direct but still about 135 USD. Transferwise was over 170 USD. OFX was way too expensive at 244 USD.

So the take away is that predatory exchange rates are, for the most part applied by western banks only. Thai banks are not nearly as greedy.

  

 

Perhaps more importantly, if ever my Canadian bank does not complete my transfer, I have somewhere to file a complaint, and the bank knows that. What could I possibly do, if some online shyster, based god-only knows where, did the same ? Peace of mind is nice, even if it isn't free.

Does anyone have experience using DeeMoney for transferring out of Thailand to UK, USA or "28" other countries?  They claim low fee, good exchange and rapid transfer using the DeeMoney app (iOS and Android), - quite large amounts of currency  -

https://www.deemoney.com/

https://www.deemoney.com/deenext/

 

16 hours ago, olliric said:

predatory exchange rates are, for the most part applied by western banks only. Thai banks are not nearly as greedy.

thai banks offer much better rates than western, especially U.S. banks.

what you had to do is transfer USD into your thai bank account, and instruct your U.S. bank

NOT to convert it. this way the USD would be converted to THB in the thai bank account.

another option is to open a USD account in your thai bank.

than transfer the USD to that account and convert it to baht only when you need them, or

when the exchange rate is good.

the immigration accepts USD in your thai bank for the visa requests, as long as they are, of course, meet

the amount neccasary in thai baht.

Thanks to the OP for looking into this.  I had previously, for years, used the ACH system through BKK Bank NY to get money to Thailand.  Now that ACH is no longer available, I simply use my bank's wire transfer system.  It's slightly more of a hassle than ACH, but I just bring in larger amounts fewer times. 

8 minutes ago, Berkshire said:

Thanks to the OP for looking into this.  I had previously, for years, used the ACH system through BKK Bank NY to get money to Thailand.  Now that ACH is no longer available, I simply use my bank's wire transfer system.  It's slightly more of a hassle than ACH, but I just bring in larger amounts fewer times. 

That's what i used to do but under the new Visa rules you have to bring in an amount every month instead of a large amount once or twice a year.