Anyone have any experience of doing this ? Trying to send money to my partners THB - BCEL account. Any country to Laos would be useful to understand.

Previously to get money there - I've sent money to Thailand - physically taken it out of the Bank and then she wires via remittance service or hand carries into Laos.
Mostly build and maintain a house, motorcycle small sums but we did buy some land last year before the Chinese buy it all up

It works OK but with the tax situation, remitting chunks of cash into Thailand for export doesnt seem a sensible way to go.
It's a gift from savings but if I ever need to prove that it will require me to recruit a Thai speaking tax accountant which will probably cost me more than the tax.

I sent £200 as a test transaction. Cost £5 to send from the UK and who knows what at the other end. When it arrived after 24 hours the effective exchange rate was grim.
I understand small sums carry a disproportionate fee rate but did wonder if it went UKP - LAK - THB so i got burned multiple ways.

I cant get a breakdown of fees from either end.
HSBC suggested I send the second test transaction (£1200) as THB - good earner for them. Same £5 outbound fee + slightly grim currency conversion rate.
It would at least give me visibility on how much arrived with some idea of what the BCEL fees were.
However that bounced back after a week with a £30 charge - no breakdown of reasons or fees.

ChatGPT suggests that the intermediary bank probably will only accept major currencies - Euro, USD, UKP so THB broke them.
The BCEL person we spoke to said all incoming transactions go to LAK first - buy i'm not sure they understood the question because THB bounced.
HSBC said ask the recieving bank.
Transparency in banking.

I have used Western Union several times to send from my UK bank account to Laos (cash pickup). Never had any problems. I also see that Wise also now offers Laos as a destination (previously did not), so that is another easy option.

Purely out of curiosity on my part:

I notice it takes a week to arrive!
(Using Wise)

2 hours ago, Madgee said:

Purely out of curiosity on my part:

I notice it takes a week to arrive!
(Using Wise)

Wise sends to Laos using Swift, hence the extended payment time.

Is it easy to open a bank account in Laos ?