Moving Money

[Kinter]

Hi all

This has probably been covered here a million times (sorry), but I would really appreciate any advice you might have to offer.

What is the best way to send money home from Thailand?

I have a Thai bank account which gives me an international ATM card. When this is used abroad do I get the Thai exchange rate, or the better external rate?

I asked my local bank branch here and really didn't get anywhere as their English wasn't the best, and I'm afraid my Thai just wasn't up to it either. They just kept telling me that it's 100baht per withdrawal while abroad.

Other then that they didn't seem to know much about international money transfers, bank draughts, or which exchange rates I might get on any of these methods.

Cheers!

[naka]

Any day that you actually manage to transfer money from Thailand

is a good day ... so don't start worrying about a hundred or so Baht.

Naka.

[Kinter]

Any day that you actually manage to transfer money from Thailand

is a good day ... so don't start worrying about a hundred or so Baht.

Naka.

Thanks, but I think you misunderstand. I'm not worried about 100 baht, in fact this is quite reasonable.

My question is what's the BEST way to transfer money

[Maestro]

...what's the BEST way to transfer money

SWIFT remittance.

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Maestro

[Kinter]

<br />

...what's the BEST way to transfer money

<br />SWIFT remittance.<br /><font size="1">--------------<br />Maestro<br /></font><br /><br />

<br /><br /><br />

Thanks, is this available from any bank?

[North]

Hi all

This has probably been covered here a million times (sorry), but I would really appreciate any advice you might have to offer.

What is the best way to send money home from Thailand?

I have a Thai bank account which gives me an international ATM card. When this is used abroad do I get the Thai exchange rate, or the better external rate?

I asked my local bank branch here and really didn't get anywhere as their English wasn't the best, and I'm afraid my Thai just wasn't up to it either. They just kept telling me that it's 100baht per withdrawal while abroad.

Other then that they didn't seem to know much about international money transfers, bank draughts, or which exchange rates I might get on any of these methods.

Cheers!

Hello Kinter,

I am trying to find out the same as you. ( I want to transfer money to my bank account in Denmark)

Until now this is what I came up with:

I asked my bank here in Khon Kaen- Bangkok Bank, and they told me, that you can send money abroad using the SWIFT transfer method. And they explained, that they will have to do the exchange here in Thailand using their ( rather poor ) exchange rate. I asked more than one time and got the same (wrong ) answer, that they can only send the money in the currency of the receiving country or in Euro or Us dollars, they cannot send the money in thai baht !

So I called the Bangkok bank head office and talked to some department there, and they first said the same as here in Khon Kaen. But when I mentioned to them, that my bank in Denmark have connections to them and in fact have accounts in Bangkok Bank, they wanted to know the swift code of my bank in Denmark, After getting that they told me, that it is possible to transfer thai baht to the danish bank. They would want to see evidence showing that the money (in my bank account) are mine ! but that should not be a problem.

The main point is, that if I transfer thai baht to Denmark I will get a bettter exchange rate than in Thailand and thus save money!

I plan to transfer 800,000 baht, and the other day I made a calculation based on exchange rates from the 10. may 2007, and the result was, that the exchange in my bank in Denmark would have given me 6,600 DKK more than if the exchange was made in Bangkok bank. 6,600 DKK is approx. 39,600 baht, and why would I give that extra money to Bangkok Bank ??

So I think this can be done, at least I will give it a try in this or next week.

But you may need to ask more than one time to get the right answers, the clerk at the front desk may not even know that this is possible, so it would be best to have someone speaking thai helping you.

And yes, I believe that a SWIFT transfer can be done in any bank in Thailand, but I think it would be best to use a big bank like Bangkok bank, because small banks may not have the possibility to transfer money directly to any foreign bank, and in that case the money transfer will have to go through one of the big banks anyway, possibly resulting in extra costs for you.

North

[Heng]

SWIFT is best.

via any bank's international version atm card (cirrus/plus) is easiest -say if you wanted funds transferred in about 2 minutes from now and your cards are already in place wherever you need them in the world- and paperwork free though.

[Kinter]

Thanks for all the info,some good tips there. I'll try the swift thing at the decent exchange rate and otherwise try the old reliable, ATM card.

North, I'm trying to send a pretty similar amount to you, and it seems as if it would be well worth getting that European exchange rate. It's a pretty big difference!

Heng, do you know about the rates on the atm cards?

Thanks again

[Heng]

Couldn't tell you specifically, Kinter sorry, but I don't recall the fees ever being anything extraordinary (as in it wasn't more than what inbound fees are when withdrawing funds via atm from abroad to Thailand) when browsing my updated passbooks.

[gummy]

Of course a well known person was believed to have avoided inter bank transfer charges by taking his money out in bags, 30 or so it appeared to be.

[Maestro]

Thanks, is this available from any bank?

Yes, SWIFT remittance is available from any bank. Some banks may call it by a different name, e.g. “wire transfer” (USA), “TT” or “telegraphic transfer” (Thailand), etc.

--------------

Maestro

[North]

Thanks for all the info,some good tips there. I'll try the swift thing at the decent exchange rate and otherwise try the old reliable, ATM card.

North, I'm trying to send a pretty similar amount to you, and it seems as if it would be well worth getting that European exchange rate. It's a pretty big difference!

Heng, do you know about the rates on the atm cards?

Thanks again

Friday last week I made the transfer from my bank account in Bangkok Bank to my bank account in Denmark. I transferred 700,000 baht and the exchange was made in my danish bank.

The result was, that I got 116,530 DKK

If Bangkok Bank had made the exchange, the result would have been 111,111 DKK

So I got extra 5,419 DKK, which is approx. 34,000 baht !

Maybe not much for some of you, but for me it is a nice sum of money. And I am sure that my danish bank did make some money too.

North

[cosmont]

If you have work permit and bank account at BBL, you can request the e-banking service that provide International Bank Transfer service.

If the amount you want to transfer exceded 20.000 USD, you must filled a specific form of BOT.