Hi all, I live in khon kaen and pension still goes into my Aussie bank account, I then transfer it to my Revolut and on to Krungthai..International Services at Centrelink have been given my Thai bank details a few times with requests to deposit regularly directly into it.

Does anyone here get payments direct to Thai bank, how much do you lose from pension doing this way.

The reason I'm asking is that my aus bank are demanding answers to very personal things in my life and I have the feeling I won't be a customer of theirs much longer. How much pension will I lose if Services Australia deposit directly to Krungthai every 4 weeks? I'm just trying to sort things out, thanks for responses

My Belgian state pension goes to my Belgian bank account.

Every five months I make a transfer from that bank to my Thai bank account.

I too have thought of pension direct monthly deposit to Thailand and like the poster would be interested to know how much every month is lost on this way by retirees here who do this monthly deposit locally.

I queried my pension office in BXL and there is no problem for my pension sent monthly to Thailand but no mention of their costs on top of my Thai bank service costs.

Centrelink can pay directly into your (or anyone's) overseas bank. There is no additional fee (unless your bank charges one) for them to do this.
However, it is my understanding that rather than receiving your benefit fortnightly, it is processed monthly.
As for the exchange rate? It is set by the Reserve Bank of Australia, usually the buy rate. However, the rate is not "live"; by that I mean that the currency exchange rate you get - calculated by the RBA, converted from AUD and deposited into your Thai bank as Baht - can be up to a week old.
So, in effect, you may get a more respectable rate from the RBA, depending on the fluctuation of the currency during the previous week.

Today (9 June 2026) Wise will give you around 23.16 THB/AUD (minus the processing fee) while the RBA will deposit at a rate of 23.98 THB with no additional fee.

Links:
Wise rate: https://wise.com/au/currency-converter/aud-to-thb-rate?amount=1000
Centrelink rate: https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/check-your-international-services-exchange-rate?context=22471

Apologies if the links don't work.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by The Oracle