32 minutes ago, EricTh said:

Once we transfer Thai baht to Wise, can we use that money to transfer to a bank outside Thailand? I don't think so.

 

You would have to explain what you mean.

I have a THB balance on my Wise account and as far as I am aware you cannot deposit THB to a Wise account. You credit the account from the home country account and then convert it to THB.

I can use that THB balance to fund my Thai account, purchase goods in Thailand or convert it back to GBP any time I want. If I do not have enough GBP to cover a transaction in the UK, they will just take one of the other currencies instead.

You have to bear in mind that a Wise account cannot be opened with a Thai address so any payment from a Thai account to a Wise account would be an international payment subject to Thai regulations. My account is in the UK and my bank is in the UK so deposits are a domestic transfer.

36 minutes ago, sandyf said:

You would have to explain what you mean.

I have a THB balance on my Wise account and as far as I am aware you cannot deposit THB to a Wise account. You credit the account from the home country account and then convert it to THB.

I can use that THB balance to fund my Thai account, purchase goods in Thailand or convert it back to GBP any time I want. If I do not have enough GBP to cover a transaction in the UK, they will just take one of the other currencies instead.

You have to bear in mind that a Wise account cannot be opened with a Thai address so any payment from a Thai account to a Wise account would be an international payment subject to Thai regulations. My account is in the UK and my bank is in the UK so deposits are a domestic transfer.

The trouble is that it is difficult to transfer money out of Thailand from existing Thai bank accounts. There are not many good options so I am wondering whether we can use this route instead.

 

22 hours ago, Ohyesuare said:

You mean they will deduct money from you? That's strange.

Switzerland on certain accounts does the same

18 hours ago, EricTh said:

The trouble is that it is difficult to transfer money out of Thailand from existing Thai bank accounts. There are not many good options so I am wondering whether we can use this route instead.

 

Quite, been there.   I don't see that making a payment to a Wise account would be any different to any other international account.

I have seen accounts of varying degrees of difficulty on this issue.  A while back when I tried to transfer £300 back to the UK I had to jump through hoops to prove it had originated in the UK.

8 minutes ago, sandyf said:

Quite, been there.   I don't see that making a payment to a Wise account would be any different to any other international account.

I have seen accounts of varying degrees of difficulty on this issue.  A while back when I tried to transfer £300 back to the UK I had to jump through hoops to prove it had originated in the UK.

So does that mean it is not possible to transfer money to a Wise account from a Thai bank?

 

I am just wondering why Thailand is making things difficult to move money out but not in.

 

Other southeast-asian countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines don't have this problem.

 

2 minutes ago, EricTh said:

I am just wondering why Thailand is making things difficult to move money out but not in.

The Bank of Thailand has exchange control regulations in place.

https://www.bot.or.th/English/FinancialMarkets/ForeignExchangeRegulations/FXRegulation/Pages/default.aspx

 

You have to bear in mind other countries in the area did not suffer from a financial meltdown in the same way Thailand did.

I can remember when there were exchange controls in the UK, you couldn't take more than £50 out of the country.