Transferring FOREIGN CURRENCY out of Thailand

[Confuscious]

A while ago I posted the question what the best way would be to move my FOREING CURRENCY in a Thai Bank back to Europe.
Many member came up with DeeMoney, Wise, etc.
But all these applications asked that I would convert the FOREIGN CURRENCY to Thai Baht first and transferred the Thai Baht into a DeeMoney or Wise account.
From there, the amount would be transferred back to Europe, but it needed to be converted to EUR again.
A big waste of money.

Last week, I was making the final arrangements to return to Europe and tried to move my FOREIGN CURRENCY trough SWIFT.

I had 2 Bank Accounts:
1. Bangkok Bank, USD account
2. USB, EUR account

First, I went to Bangkok Bank in N. Ratchasima and asked if I could move my money out of Thailand.
I showed them the original transfer from Belgium to Thailand from 2005.
No problem.
Filled a few papers, a lot of signatures and about 1 hour later everything was finished.
The money was the next day in my account in Belgium.

Initial sum:           13,939,32 USD

Transferred sum: 13,894.32 USD

Difference:                   45.00 USD

The next day, Thursday, I went to the UOB bank in N. Ratchasima, and asked the same question.
But that was impossible according to them.
I would need to WITHDRAW my money to Thai Baht, after which they could send it to Belgium in EUR.
We tried to do it directly trough the application on my phone, but it was not accepted.

The manager noticed the problem and asked me where I opened the account.
As I opened the account in Bangkok, he suggested that I would go to Bangkok and try to wire my funds to Belgium.
Next day, Friday, I went to Bangkok and asked the question again.
No problem.
Filled a few papers, a lot of signatures and about 1 hour later everything was finished.
As it was weekend, my money arrived in Belgium om Monday in the afternoon.

Initial sum:           11,700.30 Eur

Transferred sum: 11,650.97 Eur

Difference:                  49.33 Eur

If some members here want to wire their funds out of the country, I advise then to talk to their Bank.

[Confuscious]

Here is an overview of the costs of the transfer of UOB bank.
 

[oldcpu]

Interesting.  

 

You typed "USB" EUR account, but later you noted "UOB" account.  I assume "USB" a typo for "UOB".

 

So for UOB you noted you had to go to the Bangkok Bank branch where you opened your account (which was in Bangkok) to transfer Euros from Thailand foreign currency account to Belgium (without going through a Thai baht conversion).

 

I note your Bangkok Bank foreign currency account was in US$.  Were you trying in that case to transfer US$ from Bangkok bank to a Belgium based US$ foreign currency account?  If so, I also wonder, did you investigate if the same was true with Bangkok Bank that was the case with UOB?  ie was your Bangkok Bank branch US$ account initially in Bangkok or N.Ratchasima?

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Confuscious]

44 minutes ago, oldcpu said:

Interesting.  

You typed "USB" EUR account, but later you noted "UOB" account.  I assume "USB" a typo for "UOB".

 

Yes, a "typo".
USB should read UOB.

 

44 minutes ago, oldcpu said:

So for UOB you noted you had to go to the Bangkok Bank branch where you opened your account (which was in Bangkok) to transfer Euros from Thailand foreign currency account to Belgium (without going through a Thai baht conversion).

 

"Bangkok Bank" in your reply would be easily confused with Bangkok Bank.
I went to the UOB bank BRANCH in Bangkok.

UOB bank Korat wanted me to withdraw my EUR funds, which would be automaticly converted to Thai Baht.
The next step would be to send the funds to Belgium, which required a convertion from Thai Baht to Euro.

UOB bank in Bangkok didn't require me to do a conversion and did send the funds in EURO directly to Belgium.
 

44 minutes ago, oldcpu said:

I note your Bangkok Bank foreign currency account was in US$.  Were you trying in that case to transfer US$ from Bangkok bank to a Belgium based US$ foreign currency account?

 

Yes, I have an FCA account in Belgium in USD.
So the USD funds at the Bangkok Bank could be directly be send to Belgium without conversion.

 

44 minutes ago, oldcpu said:

  If so, I also wonder, did you investigate if the same was true with Bangkok Bank that was the case with UOB?  ie was your Bangkok Bank branch US$ account initially in Bangkok or N.Ratchasima?

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

"Bangkok Bank" Branch in Nakhon Ratchasima did move the funds directly to Belgium.
No need to go to Bangkok.

To be clair:
Bangkok Bank, Branch Nakhon Ratchasima has a Foreign Currency division which is directly connected to Bangkok Bank .
So, any transaction can be done directly from any branch.

UOB Foreign Currency branch can only be opened in Bangkok.
All transaction of the Foreign Currency account need to be done in Bangkok.
Withdrawing Foreign Currency in a local branch can only be done in Thai Baht, after contacting the Bangkok division.

UOB has no Foreign Currecy division in Korat and need for every transaction of Foreign Currency to contact their Foreign Currency Branch in Bangkok.