On 4/12/2026 at 7:13 PM, Bday Prang said:

The banks take that to a whole new level, They treat their customers with utter disdain, But, I think the writings on the wall for them to be honest, Once they have closed down all their branches and have done away with cash, will they even be needed anymore ?

I wonder who will be writing the the letters for immigration in the future?

Gosh! What possible solution could there be??? Hmmm. Let's look at my personal experience. For a decade in BKK I used Krungsri and when I moved to an Isaan area where the closest Krungsri was an hour away, I switched to Bangkok Bank one kilometer from my front door. Just imagine! I got off my a$$ and solved the problem in a few hours. Wait, do you honestly believe Bangkok Bank is going to close "all their branches???" OMG. You can't make this stuff up. By the way, this might be a good time to add another layer to your tinfoil hat.

2 hours ago, Seppius said:

"A few days" happened to me once, went into a branch of my Kbank, they gave me a new card there and then, same hour

Me, too on one occasion. But my card got eaten at the MRT outside the weekend market. The key word being "weekend", when the branches are closed. It was right after Covid, so I hadn't been in Thailand in a few years and it took an hour or so to update all my KYC records before they'd issue a replacement card. The other time, I got the new card next day when the branches opened.

My bigger concern is losing one of my US based ATM cards. My hometown bank isn't exactly cutting edge when it comes to foreign services and fast replacement. They're nice people, but luddites like me.

On 4/12/2026 at 8:38 AM, Hamus Yaigh said:

That's a bit 1990s isn't it? Everyone pays from an app these days.

Everything I buy is cash...apart from it's the easiest, quickest and safest way....it's worth fighting for ro keep cash alive

6 minutes ago, baansgr said:

Everything I buy is cash...apart from it's the easiest, quickest and safest way....it's worth fighting for ro keep cash alive

I use cash... but that's from experience of living in Myanmar :)

3 hours ago, kingstonkid said:

I have to disagree with all branches. I have dealt with kasikorn at futurepark and have always been treated well.

Its not the bank staff that I was referring to, I have always found them polite, even apologetic on occaisions

3 hours ago, JustinTyme said:

Let's look at my personal experience

I have a better idea, let's not. It is not all about you, infact its not about you at all.

Compulsory Super started in Aus in 1992. I was already working in the industry within Govt since '87.

Superfunds popped up everywhere.

Unsurprisingly, all of the biggies quickly closed their front doors & went to phones.

Then it was internet, now Apps.

Banks may well go down that path in the future.

Likely relatively few ATM's to remove cash & everything else will be electronic, leaving our fingerprints everywhere.

I retired in 2013 & our Super fund still had a front door.

Not so 2 years later.🙃🙃

6 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Cash will be king every time there is an outage.

of little use if the tills are down also

3 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

of little use if the tills are down also

The tills are on local network, they don't go down when internet is down

23 hours ago, dddave said:

Mobile phones have become ubiquitous, a true extension of life.

A truly heartbreaking detriment to 'life' just a huge step into the digital panopticon

resist with all you can muster.

13 minutes ago, johng said:

A truly heartbreaking detriment to 'life' just a huge step into the digital panopticon

resist with all you can muster.

Panopticon..

Had to google.

Most excellent Sir.🙃🙃

16 minutes ago, Lucky Bones said:

Panopticon..

Had to google.

Most excellent Sir.🙃🙃

Well now you know I hope you join the 'resistance'

4 hours ago, Bday Prang said:

Its not the bank staff that I was referring to, I have always found them polite, even apologetic on occasions

Okay then, I will add that Kasikorn's procedures so far have not hurt me at all and have been reasonably explained.

The point I am making is that you can't say all Thai banks are bad. That is the same as saying all Brits are drunks or all Canadians speak french.

6 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Cash will be king every time there is an outage.

of little use if the tills are down also

7 hours ago, CallumWK said:

The tills are on local network, they don't go down when internet is down

7 hours ago, CallumWK said:

The tills are on local network, they don't go down when internet is down

Depends, only yesterday someone said the internet was down so they couldn't buy anything at the supermarket they were in

On 4/12/2026 at 1:13 PM, Bday Prang said:

I wonder who will be writing the the letters for immigration in the future?

Exactly. It is totally absurd the Thai need to get a bank letter and stamped statement and bank book updated on the day to extend stay. This when, applying for a visa to USA, Canada or UK, they are quite happy to accept recent PDF statements for the last 6-12 months. No bank letter or stamp from the bank needed.

16 hours ago, Seppius said:

"A few days" happened to me once, went into a branch of my Kbank, they gave me a new card there and then, same hour

Might have taken longer over Songkran!

Off topic maybe, but in Australia they have been shutting brick and mortar banks that stood there for many years, in alarming speed and moving everything to 'on-line-and on Apps, in order to save costs i guess,

and you go into one of those banks still left standing' the ques are all the way to the front door with only one teller

serving dozens of customers.

6 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

Depends, only yesterday someone said the internet was down so they couldn't buy anything at the supermarket they were in

Where they said it? They said it to you, or was it posted on this forum?
The tills are connected to a server somewhere in the premises of the supermarket, so no internet needed.

Maybe it was a misunderstanding, and the local network (server) was down, or they couldn't pay anything?

Barclays Bank which has closed around 80% of its UK branches has recently stated that it will actually make a u-turn and reopen some. Hasn't been stated how many and of course Barclays won't say that they closed too many too quickly without thinking about customers. Anyway, it's a small crumb of good news.

16 hours ago, kingstonkid said:

The point I am making is that you can't say all Thai banks are bad

I did not say all Thai banks are bad , My comment was regarding banks in general,

The banks used to give one the impression that one was a valued customer, now their attitude seems to be that holding an account with them is a privilege, and one which they will happily withdraw if it suits them to

Back in the day it was perfectly possible to exist without a bank account, now it's impossible, I guess that explains their change in attitude.

Having a bank account should be considered to be a basic human right in this day and age

9 hours ago, ezzra said:

Off topic maybe, but in Australia they have been shutting brick and mortar banks that stood there for many years, in alarming speed and moving everything to 'on-line-and on Apps, in order to save costs i guess,

and you go into one of those banks still left standing' the ques are all the way to the front door with only one teller

serving dozens of customers.

Well back in the days of the credit crunch, the banks in the UK were bailed out by the government for billions,

I wonder, was it a condition of the bail out, that they spent a large proportion of the money on lavish, over the top refurbishments of their high street branches before they boarded them up, or was that just another way they could think of for wasting our money ? And all this corporate "rebranding" who pays for all that ? the customer of course,

I don't want a fancy insignia or an account with a fancy name , but I would like to be able to speak to a bank employee occasionally if the need arises, and that is something that is becoming increasingly difficult back in the UK

Its not so bad here......yet, but it won't be long. I'm far from fluent in Thai but I can normally make myself understood when talking to the bank employees face to face, I find it a lot harder to communicate over the telephone for some reason. Maybe I just need to buck my ideas up lol