Finance Foreign Nationals Face Account Bans in Bangkok Bank Crackdown

[couchpotato]

37 minutes ago, SongSomSoda said:

if he has done nothing illegal he most likely needs to set up Face ID , update book , Tax ID and maybe verify the ownership of the mobile number he uses for online banking.

Face ID=yes,  Bank Book=yes,  Verify Mobile nbr=yes,  Passport=yes,  Tax ID not required. 

And possibly Residence letter from IO and address verification documents 

[couchpotato]

43 minutes ago, it is what it is said:

 

why do you need an agent to open a bank account? it's hardly rocket science.

He didn't say he used an Agent..read what he wrote.

[treetops]

1 hour ago, SongSomSoda said:

sorry , what do you mean with BBL. 

 

Bangkok Bank Limited.  You used BBK in your post.

[Puccini]

1 hour ago, SongSomSoda said:

sorry , what do you mean with BBL. 

 

BBL is the symbol for Bangkok Bank Limited on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). It is akin to using MSFT for Microsoft Corporation. Stock symbols, aka ticker symbols, are best avoided outside stock investment forums.

[Patong2021]

On 5/28/2025 at 6:34 PM, ozz1 said:

And they want foreign investment  here anyone investing here should have a big think about it

 

The  procedures will not negatively impact legitimate foreign investment. How would it? What it will do is  answer the international pressures to  combat money laundering and tax evasion.

[SongSomSoda]

2 hours ago, couchpotato said:

Face ID=yes,  Bank Book=yes,  Verify Mobile nbr=yes,  Passport=yes,  Tax ID not required. 

And possibly Residence letter from IO and address verification documents 

i had to give my german Tax ID (steuer-ID) when i opened my bank account with Bangkok Bank last year.

yes residence letter but only when opening the bank account needed i guess.

 

Tax ID and thai driving licence was  a must otherwise no bank account, they were very serious and strict.

[DonniePeverley]

5 hours ago, SongSomSoda said:

if he has done nothing illegal he most likely needs to set up Face ID , update book , Tax ID and maybe verify the ownership of the mobile number he uses for online banking.

 

 

Nope, his account was closed. 

 

 

[stevenl]

11 hours ago, shdmn said:

This is not the same as GCash or Maya Pay in the Philippines. Those give you an actual bank account number that you can transfer money directly into with Wise. 

 

These are not like bank accounts.  They require you to add the credit through cash or foreign credit card, so you are forced to pay their exchange rates in addition to whatever transaction fees you were already paying before.  In other words, it's just one more middleman.  Less than useless.  Other Thai banks are doing something similar.

You asked a question, i gave you information. The least you could have done is saying 'thanks, but that's not the same ' before indicating why it's not what you're looking for.

 

Common courtesy.

[sandyf]

On 6/8/2025 at 4:22 PM, mikebike said:

Not sure why consulates (not embassies it is a consul's job) would do that. And if they did, how would it be easier, or better, than just showing your 65k/m or 800k in the bank?

Indeed, the letter came from the Embassy's Consular Section. However the notice issued by immigration when it first came about referred to "Embassies".

As for your second point, strikes me the Thais decided it would be better to see the income appearing in the bank.

[mikebike]

3 hours ago, sandyf said:

Indeed, the letter came from the Embassy's Consular Section. However the notice issued by immigration when it first came about referred to "Embassies".

As for your second point, strikes me the Thais decided it would be better to see the income appearing in the bank.

Yes, no doubt that seeing the money actually coming into the country would be the goal I expect 😊 Unfortunately, the letter seems to only refer to relatives of a Thai national. My wife is farang 😊

[sandyf]

16 hours ago, mikebike said:

😊 Unfortunately, the letter seems to only refer to relatives of a Thai national. My wife is farang 😊

That is not the case. the income letters were available to anyone requiring proof of income.  Many were on retirement extensions without any Thai relatives.

[Ohyesuare]

Just got a notification on my Bangkok Bank app to update my info (KYC). Have the account since 2019 and on a long term visa. Tested and everything still works though.

[Caldera]

1 hour ago, Ohyesuare said:

Just got a notification on my Bangkok Bank app to update my info (KYC). Have the account since 2019 and on a long term visa. Tested and everything still works though.

 

That's interesting insofar as they might have decided to give affected customers some advance warning before locking them out, which didn't seem to be the case before.

 

Did they tell you any specifics, such as where you need to go ("your" branch or any branch) and by what date?

[shdmn]

On 6/9/2025 at 7:36 PM, stevenl said:

You asked a question, i gave you information. The least you could have done is saying 'thanks, but that's not the same ' before indicating why it's not what you're looking for.

 

Common courtesy.

 

You gave bad info after doing a google search for the wrong thing.  Now you are apparently upset after I tried to explain the error and think you deserve a gold star participation award instead?

[stevenl]

6 hours ago, shdmn said:

 

You gave bad info after doing a google search for the wrong thing.  Now you are apparently upset after I tried to explain the error and think you deserve a gold star participation award instead?

Upset? Just disappointed you lack common courtesy.

Google search? No, i just remembered i saw something that could be what you were looking for and managed to refind it.

[Ohyesuare]

20 hours ago, Caldera said:

 

That's interesting insofar as they might have decided to give affected customers some advance warning before locking them out, which didn't seem to be the case before.

 

Did they tell you any specifics, such as where you need to go ("your" branch or any branch) and by what date?

 

I just updated it through the app where the notification directed me to.

[Caldera]

2 hours ago, Ohyesuare said:

I just updated it through the app where the notification directed me to.

 

What can you update there? Do they allow you to upload your new passport nowadays, or is that just a KYC questionnaire?

[Ohyesuare]

45 minutes ago, Caldera said:

 

What can you update there? Do they allow you to upload your new passport nowadays, or is that just a KYC questionnaire?

 

It was just a KYC questionnaire. They wanted my address, occupation, net worth, source of funds, contact phone number etc.. 

[sikishrory]

On 6/3/2025 at 9:26 PM, Lorry said:

2 year visa and a WP meant that Bangkok Bank blocked the account "because the owner of the phone number was not the owner of the account". So my friend fixed that problem. 

Bangkok Bank then required to wait 3 days (because of the holidays it was a week) and then travel again to the branch that opened the account.

So my friend did just that and traveled to the branch today.

Today they closed the account for good.

 

 

 

 

 

They get the money out first or?

[sikishrory]

This stems from a ฿2.2 billion scam covered by multiple outlets:

• 15 Chinese nationals entered Thailand on Mar 9, left Mar 13

• Assisted by 4 Thai bank staff (including a branch manager) in Pattaya

• 209 bank accounts opened with forged documents

• ฿118M deposited, ฿91M withdrawn before fleeing

• Accounts linked to 106 fraud cases and 462 mule accounts

• Total damages: ฿2.2 billion

Can't open an account on a tourist visa. Fair enough.

But it’s not just Bangkok Bank — reports mention Kasikorn accounts being frozen too. SCB seems unaffected so far, but if you’ve got serious money in any Thai bank, it’s worth being cautious.

 

What if you opened an account years ago on a non-immigrant visa but now hold a DTV (which is classified as tourist)?

I see secondhand claims of BKK Bank freezing these, but nothing firsthand.

So I called both SCB and Kasikorn today:

• Kasikorn: spoke for a couple of minutes but in a nutshell said nothing to worry about.

• SCB: More detailed:

  “It doesn’t have a problem as you used the correct visa in the first moment.”
  “We don’t update visa type, only passport or phone number. Visa is only needed to open the account.”
  “You can still ask at a branch — they may have more specific info.”

Also worth noting: SCB now requires face scanning for app access (as of June 5). Without it, you’re limited to 50,000 THB per transfer, though the agent said multiple back-to-back transfers are fine.

 

Other thoughts:

• How will this affect the long-term visa market: need a Thai bank to get a such and such visa, but need a visa to get a Thai bank.

• How will this affect the condo market: yes, you can transfer directly to a developer, but if you don’t use your own Thai bank account, you won’t get a credit advice document — required to move money back out of Thailand later. No control if there’s a transfer issue, either.

The situation feels messy and opaque. Could definitely be handled better.

[moopsy]

There's something more to this than DTV. 

Just last week SCB stopped allowing foreigners with transfering more than 50k THB since they disallowed facial scan exemptions.

For some reason i can't use CARDX dee jung service i had with my credit card for installments. Note i registered both of those accounts with a work permit and i still hold one. 

 

I also have a thai bank account that i opened with a tourist visa that's not SCB or Bangkok that i still hold and there's no problem even with me not providing the new work permit and visa to them. 

 

Transferwise also started having problems.

 

So the gist of it chinese doing chinese things in thailand and they of course decide to punish every single foreigner since all foreigners are same. 

Most scams that the chinese do are through their thai partners so maybe you're looking in the wrong place. It's hard for foreigners to breathe let alone do elaborate scams in thailand. 

 

Whenever there's a problem they'll blame the foreigners. If you lived here during covid you would understand this. 

We're one bad media reaction from getting hunted deported en mass. 

 

[Lorry]

3 hours ago, sikishrory said:

They get the money out first or?

No.

They kept the money. 

[Lorry]

49 minutes ago, moopsy said:

Most scams that the chinese do are through their thai partners

I don't know what do you been by "through their Thai partners".

If you mean partners as in "women" you are very wrong.