16 hours ago, Mike Lister said:

My knowledge of non-resident bank accounts in Thailand is now dated, it stems from 15 years ago when HSBC Thailand opened my account as a non-resident. When quizzed as to why, my assigned Premier Team contact told me it was standard practise that saved a lot of problems with repatriation of funds and tax. That made a lot of since to me in that the only downside was I was unable to earn interest and/or deposit THB cash. A link below explains the differences.

 

Subsequent discussions in forums showed that most foreigners didn't know what sort of account they held and that hardly any knew there are two different types. It was later shown that some held resident accounts, some held non-resident accounts. When HSBC Thailand retail banking closed, I transitioned to two Thai banks where I was automatically given resident accounts. There has been a transition from a default, non-resident account, to a resident account, except in the case of Foreign Currency Accounts where non-resident accounts for foreigners are common.

 

https://www.tilleke.com/insights/banking-thailand-resident-or-non-resident-account/

Thanks for clarification

Thai banks are safe. Thai housing projects however…

So let me look at this from a different perspective. As this is for a build project, do you really need it all here at once? If you have a cheap way of transferring the cash, bring it over as needed, or maybe 100k AU$ at a time when you've spent the previous 100k.. Much less risk in Thailand doing it this way.