Ah, this explains why my recent transfer to TMB from Wise failed.  I use TMB as a back-up bank to Bangkok Bank, and was just testing if I could send funds to it from Wise, prior to going back to teach in Myanmar.  I wonder how I can send funds to TMB without first sending it to Bangkok Bank (ie I want a back-up route, independant of Bangkok Bank)

42 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

That list was discussed in May, they couldn't handle the required system upgrades, no reason to think the supported banks above will be stopped

Sorry, but that theory does not make much logical sense. It is hard to believe that 20 banks in Thailand would suddenly be unable to handle standard bank to bank transfers from within Thailand. All a Thai bank really needs to do in this case is receive the transfer from another Thai bank. Sometimes the transfer is even from an account within the same bank as the final recipient. We are talking about basic local bank to bank transfers taking place here, nothing more. It doesn't involve any international networks. 

 

One of these 20 banks is also UOB, which is likely the largest Asian bank in the region. They operate in 10 different Asian countries and have built banking apps for all of them. In terms of systems and technology, they are probably ahead of any Thai bank. Given that, the idea that they or the others cannot keep up with the system's requirements for these simple transactions does not quite add up.

Perhaps the main reason the BOT is not fond of all these Wise transfers is that they would rather see actual dollars, euros, and possibly pounds coming into the country and being exchanged locally. With payments and transfers going through Wise, it is mostly just baht moving around within Thailand. On top of that, none of the Thai banks are earning from the currency exchange, since Wise is now making that profit offshore. So plenty of good reasons for the BOT to want to stop it all eventually because Wise stops the foreign currency from coming in and it cuts off the Thai banks from earning all that revenue on the currency exchange.

6 hours ago, FriscoKid said:

Yes, it probably would. And I think the majority of the retirees from the UK living in Thailand, who receive a state pension, also have it transferred in via Wise. Without that facility, they would have to do a Bank wire from their UK bank account to get their money into their Thai bank every month. I think wire transfer fees from UK banks are not that inexpensive either. And that would be 12 wires a year for them.

As Wise transfers for a pension are not really so cheap I recently switched to let my German pension directly transferred to my Thai bank account by the pension payment agency. The money usually arrives a day  earlier, exchange rate is not great but acceptable as there are international  bank charges involved. And I always get a written confirmation letter from the bank as reference. For me personally this has some advantages.

9 hours ago, Everyman said:

I have noticed that Wise transfer times to my Philipines and Vietnamese bank accounts still take seconds. Only my Thai account at Bangkok Bank is next business day. I do think there’s something to the idea that this is due to restrictions by the BoT, but like most things it’s probably an unintended consequence of something else. 

 

For my part though, I have started using my Schwab card to withdraw 30,000 baht at a time and just deposit it in cash in my account. If I do that twice a month, plus credit card use, it about covers my expenses. 

My Wise transfer times to the Philippines is about the same as Thailand. Occasionally in an hour or two but usually the next day.

2 hours ago, FriscoKid said:

 

It is hard to say where this is going in my opinion. I also find it unlikely that Wise chose on its own to cut off those 20 banks in Thailand. I suspect they were forced to. Their business is built on transfers, so why would they want to stop working with three quarters of the banks in the country? Now they are down to seven banks, and there is no guarantee those will not be cut off as well. That is my main point. When you say those three will be fine, I agree if it is up to Wise. My concern is that Wise could eventually lose access to all banks in Thailand. PayPal was cut off from Thailand a few years ago and Apple Pay does not work and has never worked with any Thai debit or credit cards. Thailand has a local monopoly on digital payment platforms, and right now Wise is competing with it. They could eventually be pushed out too.

 

Senseless, speculative and groundless long-term scaremongering.

43 minutes ago, Gsxrnz said:

It's not that Thai banks are not accepting deposits from Wise. It's a business decision by Wise to maintain relationships with the banks that have the biggest market share and capitalisation. It costs money to maintain any form of interbank network. 

 

This is a list of the top 10 Thai banks by capitalisation. At a quick count, it represents north of 80% of market share. No surprise that Wise choose to deal with most of these banks - the 80/20 rule applies. 

 

1    The Siam Commercial Bank Public Company Ltd    $12.42 B 
2    Kasikornbank Public Company Ltd    $11.37 B 
3    Krung Thai Bank PCL    $9.31 B 
4    Bangkok Bank Public Company Ltd    $8.42 B  
5    TMB Bank Public Company Ltd    $5.64 B 
6    Bank of Ayudhya Public Company Ltd    $4.97 B 
7    TISCO Financial Group Public Company Ltd    $2.42 B 
8    Kiatnakin Phatra Bank Public Company Ltd    $1.22 B   
9    LH Financial Group Public Company Ltd    $490.2 M  
10    CIMB Thai Bank Public Company Ltd    $397.5 M 

 

Source: Top 10 largest Thai Banks—Regional Companies 2025

 

That makes much more (business) sense than the OP's (groundless) suggestion that this is just another facet of Thai xenophobia.

7 hours ago, FriscoKid said:

 

I know many people who only transfer funds into Thailand once or twice a year with Wise and not every month because they are not pensioners. Monthly pensioners who are affected would already be aware of this. I only transfer money at the beginning of the year, and the bank I usually use is no longer supported. If I had not come across this information now, I would have been caught out by it early next year. How about you? How often do you transfer money into Thailand with Wise?

I haven't remitted (key word) any funds to my SCB account from Wise for more than a year. My balance is still above whatever I need to renew my annual visa. I don't want to remit more than my THB tax free allowance in any one year.

 

In my Wise account, I bought a pile of THB a few months ago when the CHFTHB rate ticked up to 41. I pay as much as I can with my Wise debit card.

 

I suppose I am lucky to have a SCB account (I don't use that phrase very often ;-)). If I had suddenly had remittance problems I would have been spitting feathers until I found an acceptable solution.

 

Bitcoin fixes this.

19 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

 

Senseless, speculative and groundless long-term scaremongering.

Wise earns about US$1 billion annually. It is reasonable to think that exchanging foreign currencies into baht abroad brings them at least US$20 million in revenue a year, if not much more. If Wise did not operate in Thailand, that revenue could be going into the pockets of Thai banks instead. While Wise is a clear benefit to foreigners in Thailand, it offers little to no direct benefit to Thailand itself. It's likely viewed by the BOT as a disturbance to the profits of the local banks. 

59 minutes ago, FriscoKid said:

Sorry, but that theory does not make much logical sense. It is hard to believe that 20 banks in Thailand would suddenly be unable to handle standard bank to bank transfers from within Thailand. All a Thai bank really needs to do in this case is receive the transfer from another Thai bank. Sometimes the transfer is even from an account within the same bank as the final recipient. We are talking about basic local bank to bank transfers taking place here, nothing more. It doesn't involve any international networks. 

 

One of these 20 banks is also UOB, which is likely the largest Asian bank in the region. They operate in 10 different Asian countries and have built banking apps for all of them. In terms of systems and technology, they are probably ahead of any Thai bank. Given that, the idea that they or the others cannot keep up with the system's requirements for these simple transactions does not quite add up.

Doesn't make sense, if they are against Wise transfers they stop some banks, leave others 

9 hours ago, hotandsticky said:

 

 

Six seconds to Kasikorn Bank 99.5% of the time.

No problems at all with my bank

9 hours ago, FriscoKid said:

Thank you, but there are already plenty of posts about how many seconds it takes to transfer from Wise to a Thai bank account.

 

The real issue is that out of the 27 Thai banks Wise used to support, transfers to 20 have been discontinued as of two and a half months ago. That leaves only seven banks, just 25 percent, that can still receive a Wise transfer. Options are shrinking fast, and if they disappear completely, it will no longer matter how fast a Wise transfer is.

Absoliyeley no problems with my bank and noticed from Mau 2025?

It seems that the conventional "high street banks" (although these days it does seem that most of their activity is based in shopping malls) are the ones continuing to use "Wise". The more "fringe banks" (and let's face it how many of them have "expat" customers) seem to have decided it is not worth maintaining the service.

Most of the banks no longer supported by Wise are either foreign banks with no retail presence (Citibank, BNP Paribas, etc.) or are niche Thai banks (Islamic Bank of Thailand, GSB, etc.) catering mostly to Thais or specific segments of the Thai population. Corporates are not going to use Wise for transfers and the Thai public is probably not Wise's target demographic. Notable exceptions are UOB, TMB Thanachart and Thanachart Bank.

 

I can't imagine UOB not being able to support whatever "upgrades" were supposedly introduced in May and Wise's statement does not specifically state that these upgrades were at the direction of the Bank of Thailand, so I think this is a business decision on the part of Wise to limit relationships to those banks with which Wise has a certain volume of transfers.

9 hours ago, FriscoKid said:

The real issue is that out of the 27 Thai banks Wise used to support, transfers to 20 have been discontinued as of two and a half months ago. That leaves only seven banks, just 25 percent, that can still receive a Wise transfer. Options are shrinking fast, and if they disappear completely, it will no longer matter how fast a Wise transfer is.

Surely the real issue is that Thai regulators (Bank of Thailand, Thai Bankers’ Association etc) mandated changes to how electronic money transfers are routed. Only banks that adapted to these new protocols remain compatible with Wise since May this year and that is why the list of banks is what it is now? Why not discuss how the other banks can fall in line or not as the case maybe?

2 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

That list was discussed in May, they couldn't handle the required system upgrades, no reason to think the supported banks above will be stopped

What would a day be without some recycled fear mongering through the grapevine.

So fed up with this BS.

 

Some more pensions taxed please...

Some can't do 5 year driving license please...

More ideas?

4 hours ago, Everyman said:

 

That would certainly be an issue for people that use the funds for those purposes, but for me I don’t. I also don’t want to buy anything. Thailand is a renters market. 

yeah.  My first trip was in 2004.  15 visits since.  Almost bought a condo in December 2004.  1 million baht at the time with an exchange rate of 40 to 1 USD.  No idea how things would have turned out.  Now that I am semi retired I still doubt I will spend more than 179 days in country.  Can't see the risk of buying anything at my age to boot 68

10 hours ago, Ohyesuare said:

Schwab refunds international ATM fees. 

Can I ask how? The local bank takes the fee out of the money they take from the international bank before giving the balance to you - it is not a separate transaction - they do not take out 2 separate amounts.  Maybe you make a claim and get a refund?  I am interested - have heard this before - how do you get refunded?

10 hours ago, FriscoKid said:

And which Thai bank ATMs support a 30,000 Baht withdrawal per transaction? I thought the limit was 20,000 Baht per withdrawal in the past. 

Some SCB ATMs that I use have been dispensing 30k for well over a year and possibly much longer.

I also know it has been mentioned in posts here with some other banks.

6 hours ago, FriscoKid said:

Interesting. If that's possible then why have I seen so many people on here talk about having to pay their UK state pension into a UK bank account first and then transferring it to their Thai account via Wise?

My UK state pension has been paid directly into Bangkok Bank, via Citibank, every 28 days for many years, in fact last Thursday too, and of course, no ATM fee's....... 🤗

8 hours ago, FriscoKid said:

Interesting. If that's possible then why have I seen so many people on here talk about having to pay their UK state pension into a UK bank account first and then transferring it to their Thai account via Wise?

Probably because they want to be able to bring the money over when the exchange rate is favourable.  There is no charge at the UK end, and the Bangkok Bank charge is 100 baht plus 0.1% of the amount.  The exchange rate I got last week was 43.61 compared to the Bangkok Bank rate at the same time of 43.47, and I get an SMS notification of the transaction.

11 hours ago, ericthai said:

Wise was going to be $79 for the same amount and the exchange rate was almost the same. 

 

Fortunately (for you) you were exchanging USD where the typical exchange rate swing is 0.3%.  For most other currencies the swing is about 0.9%.  This means for higher USD transactions Swift will eventually beat Wise, but for other currencies Wise will always be cheaper.

 

 

9 hours ago, FriscoKid said:

Interesting. If that's possible then why have I seen so many people on here talk about having to pay their UK state pension into a UK bank account first and then transferring it to their Thai account via Wise?

 

To maintain the illusion they are still living in the UK which entitles them to annual rises in the state pension.  Thai residents don't qualfy for these increases.

 

As regards the OP, I'm in the camp of it's baseless scaremongering.  The changes were well discussed on here back in May and this is the first suggestion I can recall that there's a suggestion of an anti-Wise agenda.

 

GSB even replied to someone to say it was their internal systems inability to conform with new BOT requirements on international transfers that was to blame, and they had a target date of 20th June to resolve it.  I've no idea if they did.

More "Wise" Bad News For Wise Customers Residing in Thailand. 

 

So what if they stop , One can still use Other international money transfer companies ,I use Wise  for a little better deal , I have used TorFx  ,pretty good.

• Remitly.
• Revolut.
• OFX
• Xoom (a PayPal Service)
• Xe Money Transfer.
• WorldRemit. 
• And a few more  TorFx  ,   OFX   , and more 

19 minutes ago, digger70 said:

More "Wise" Bad News For Wise Customers Residing in Thailand. 

 

So what if they stop , One can still use Other international money transfer companies ,I use Wise  for a little better deal , I have used TorFx  ,pretty good.

• Remitly.
• Revolut.
• OFX
• Xoom (a PayPal Service)
• Xe Money Transfer.
• WorldRemit. 
• And a few more  TorFx  ,   OFX   , and more 

 

 

If WISE stop (and they won't) so will the others.

 

WISE have no desire to stop, Thai banks just seem to be making it a bit harder.

On 8/16/2025 at 12:06 AM, gk10012001 said:

being new to this sort of thing and having only just used Zelle once this week for the first time and was impressed with how fast and easy Zelle was, I wondered if one can use zelle to transfer money to thailand? So some quick research:

 

While Zelle doesn’t work internationally, you don’t have to worry if you want to send money overseas. For international payments, Zelle alternatives include PayPal, WorldRemit, Wise, Revolut, Remitly, and TransferGo.

Paypal has very bad exchange rates. Compared to wise you lose 5 to 10%.

On 8/16/2025 at 11:02 AM, TroubleandGrumpy said:

Can I ask how? The local bank takes the fee out of the money they take from the international bank before giving the balance to you - it is not a separate transaction - they do not take out 2 separate amounts.  Maybe you make a claim and get a refund?  I am interested - have heard this before - how do you get refunded?

 

Fidelity refunds the ATM fees as well.  Automatically within a few days.  Once it wasnt automatic and I had to send in an image of the ATM receipt. 

3 hours ago, Oliver Holzerfilled said:

 

Fidelity refunds the ATM fees as well.  Automatically within a few days.  Once it wasnt automatic and I had to send in an image of the ATM receipt. 

Thanks but I am still curious - how do they know what the ATM charge is? The ATM charge comes out of your transfer from your overseas bank account. There is not two transfers - or is there.  When did you last do it?    

14 minutes ago, TroubleandGrumpy said:

Thanks but I am still curious - how do they know what the ATM charge is? The ATM charge comes out of your transfer from your overseas bank account. There is not two transfers - or is there.  When did you last do it?    

 

5000 baht withdrawal + ATM fee debited from my account in one transaction.  In this case Fidelity rebated the ATM fee the same day.  

 

On 8/16/2025 at 7:32 AM, FriscoKid said:

If Wise did not operate in Thailand, that revenue could be going into the pockets of Thai banks instead.

Due to their larcenous/ usurious currency conversion practices, a lot more than USD 20MM would flow to the Thai banks instead. Which kind of proves your point, no? Not to mention the fixed charge (THB 300) that is applied to standard ex-Thailand to Thailand bank remittances. Wise avoids this charge as well as offering much tighter spreads. Typically Wise's charges are about 0.2%

On 8/15/2025 at 9:00 PM, FriscoKid said:

However, I suspect it is only a matter of time before Wise can no longer be used to transfer money into any Thai bank accounts. My guess is that it may last at most another year before it is completely shut down.

And this guess is based on what precisely?