@Lancelot01

Hi

I just read your posting using Revolt and so I tried to see what the costs would be if I used my app.

€1000 'free' allowance per month

Revolut could tell me their costs, but the Intermediary bank would charge € 16- € 31, which they couldn’t really know until it hits my Kasikorn account.

Also, Kasikorn will charge a minimum B500 to receive the funds.

Could you give us an idea of how much you transferred and what the costs were? I'd like to see how it compares to Wise

Thanks

1 hour ago, Finlaco said:

@thaibreaker I've not used Revolut yet to t/f to Thailand. What does your bank charge to receive the funds? Kasikorn charges .25% min B250 max B500

200฿ Bangkok bank charged me on 10,000฿.

The more you transfer the higher the Fee max 500฿

9 hours ago, newbee2022 said:

Western Union is an option.

A shxt option.

52 minutes ago, Keeenok Powell said:

A shxt option.

It's one option. Period

6 hours ago, Finlaco said:

@thaibreaker I've not used Revolut yet to t/f to Thailand. What does your bank charge to receive the funds? Kasikorn charges .25% min B250 max B500

Krungsri charges nothing. The amount I send from Revolut, is the same amount credited.

I used Wise for over 8 years, but stopped about three months ago after too many account errors over the years. I switched to Revolut full-time, and it’s been smooth, with no unexpected issues. I’ve also used Revolut’s digital debit cards with Apple Pay for in-store purchases in multiple countries without any problems. I also prefer the Revolut app’s interface.

One feature I really like is Revolut’s virtual debit cards for online purchases. I created a dedicated virtual card exclusively for online shopping and keep it permanently locked, even though it’s saved in my Shopee account. When I check out, Shopee initially declines the payment because the card is locked, but Revolut immediately sends a notification asking if I want to approve that specific transaction. I approve it in the app, the payment goes through, and the card remains locked the entire time. It’s a great security feature that Wise never offered.

Revolut also lets you create one-time virtual cards that automatically expire after a single online purchase. That’s another excellent security feature that Wise doesn’t offer.

Revolut also lets me exchange up to US$1,000 each month with no fees, which Wise doesn’t offer. Wise usually has a slightly better USD/THB exchange rate (around 20 satang better than Revolut), but Revolut’s fee-free exchange on the first US$1,000 largely offsets that difference.

I mainly use Revolut for everyday spending, so I haven’t tried transferring funds to a Thai bank account yet. The only transfer I’ve made so far was a USD transfer to another USD account, and it arrived within seconds.

10 hours ago, IsaanT said:

I can be very confident that you are not sending to KBank.

Different banks have different transmission times. KBank is the best, in many other ways too. My Wise deposits into my KBank account complete in seconds 99% of the time, and minutes if not.

The same for Krungthai bank.

10 hours ago, hanbla said:

I used Wise for years and was happy with it until my debit card information was leaked. That Swedish debit card was locked and had ONLY been used with Wise.

Now I use Swedish Handelsbanken-> Bangkok Bank. The exchange rate is almost the same as Wise. I lose a few hundred baht, but the transfer is safe and it takes 2 days. I can live with that.

Would that be a Swift transfer?

41 minutes ago, thaibreaker said:

Krungsri charges nothing. The amount I send from Revolut, is the same amount credited.

@thaibreaker I know this can be difficult but a simple Google search tells me that your bank actually charges similar to Kasikorn. You transferred Thai baht or your own currency? Were you able to work out the actual charges involved?

Revolut Gives two options where you pay their fees and you see what happens with the intimate bank or you agree to usually a €30 fee and that covers all costs.

Were you able to work out all the costs involved? Would you mind sharing it here or in a DM

@FriscoKid I was on to customer services Revolut and they were adamant that there’s an intermediary bank fee roughly €15-€31 which they don’t charge but the intermediary bank charges and it’s taken out of the transfer. Would you be able to confirm that you sent €1000 and the fees charged were xx and how much hit your bank account? Most if not all local banks will take a minimum of 500 baht but they don’t disclose this and you wouldn’t notice it unless you contact the bank to find out how much was actually sent, et cetera

5 hours ago, Finlaco said:

@Lancelot01

Hi

I just read your posting using Revolt and so I tried to see what the costs would be if I used my app.

€1000 'free' allowance per month

Revolut could tell me their costs, but the Intermediary bank would charge € 16- € 31, which they couldn’t really know until it hits my Kasikorn account.

Also, Kasikorn will charge a minimum B500 to receive the funds.

Could you give us an idea of how much you transferred and what the costs were? I'd like to see how it compares to Wise

Thanks

Really, Kasikorn charges for receiving money?

I regularly use wise to transfer money either into my Krungthai bank account or my Vietcombank account (in Vietnam), neither of them charge me anything for that.

@Lancelot 55555 you’re reading a posting about Revolut not Wise. Wise will transfer the deposit via a local Thai bank account and so your bank won’t know it originated overseas. My posting is about Revolut who sends the transfer in the traditional way and yes, your bank will charge you for the receipt. Most users won’t be aware of this because you need to actually call the call Center and find out from your Thai bank how much they received and what fees they took from it they don’t make it obvious on your bank book or even on your online account.

Edited August 7Aug 7 by Finlaco

@FriscoKid @thaibreaker This is what I get on my Revolut app and you can see the charges. Are you not getting this when you transfer your money?

Option 1 you pay upfront €3 and the intermediary bank takes €15-€31 as it makes a way to your Thai bank

Option 2 you pay €30 and no other fees are taken until it reaches your Thai bank and then they will take 500 baht but won’t make it obvious unless you contact their call Center to get the details of the transfer

Edited August 7Aug 7 by Finlaco
Clarity

1 hour ago, Finlaco said:

@thaibreaker I know this can be difficult but a simple Google search tells me that your bank actually charges similar to Kasikorn. You transferred Thai baht or your own currency? Were you able to work out the actual charges involved?

Revolut Gives two options where you pay their fees and you see what happens with the intimate bank or you agree to usually a €30 fee and that covers all costs.

Were you able to work out all the costs involved? Would you mind sharing it here or in a DM

What you do, is opening a Thai currency account at Revolut (you can open as many as you want, in which currency you want) . Then you change from the currency of your choosing at Revolut first (your own country's currency, or dollar, Euro etc), to Thai baht. You get the current exchange rate, very competitive.

When you so send that amount to Krungsri, they will add 20-25 baht, for let's say 50.000 baht. That is what Revolut charge for the whole transfer, including the currency exchange. You send Thai baht in other words.

That amount you send, will turn up in full at Krungsri.

So yes, total fee from both banks will then be those 20-25 baht. Krungsri charges nothing, that has been a fact for me for at least a year.

Edited August 7Aug 7 by thaibreaker

10 hours ago, OJAS said:

Don't believe that you can open a Revolut account with a Thai address, whereas you can a Wise account. That was (for me, personally) the major stumbling block I encountered when I investigated the possibility of opening a Revolut account (as an alternative to Wise) a few months ago.

I opened my Revolut account when I was in Indonesia. I just used VPN pointing to my home country, Norway. Got my first 3 cards sent to Indonesia for free, with DHL. Took 3 days. Metal abbonement.

So I'm pretty sure you can open one in Thailand too, by using VPN, if you have an address in your home country.

If you have registered moving to Thailand, that might be a different story.

Edited August 7Aug 7 by thaibreaker

@thaibreaker you saw my screen grabs. You can see the charges involved. Could you share the screen grabs you get when you try to send Thai baht to Thailand on Revolut?

40 minutes ago, Finlaco said:

@thaibreaker you saw my screen grabs. You can see the charges involved. Could you share the screen grabs you get when you try to send Thai baht to Thailand on Revolut?

I have a a metal abonnement. I do not believe Swift is involved here.

My last transfer was 68565 baht (you must change to Thai baht first, you cannot send in Euro, then the receiving bank will charge you for the conversion).

Revolut added (took) 51 baht, their sending fee for this amount, so what ended up in my Krungsri account, was 68514 baht (from 68565 baht incl. fee).

Krungsri took no fee, and they haven't the last 20 transfers or so either. Here, I typed in 68514 baht at Revolut, and that's what I received.

I do not click on the traditional shared fee, that only comes up as a choice at my Norwegian bank. There I click shared fee, 90 NOK, and funny thing, no fees are taken by the receiving end Revolut there either. No fee. The amount I send TO Revolut in Norwegian kroners, appears at Revolut in full.

So the same happens when I receive money at Krungsri, no fees with them, sent from Revolut (no box to click for shared fees, probably because the transfer is instant, perhaps not via Swift). Revolut never takes more than around 60 baht fee from me, transferring to Krungsri, from around 80k baht.

I can't explain this any better. Just try it for yourself, with metal abb. Costs for me 15.5 Euro per month, which includes insurance (travel, purchase), free VPN and many other benefits.

You will never experience fees in the order you wrote above here, from 200 baht and up from Krungsri, at least I haven't.

Edited August 7Aug 7 by thaibreaker

@Finlaco

I used my abb. at Chatgpt Go to ask, and came up with this:

"In some countries and currency corridors, Revolut uses local payment partners instead of SWIFT. In those cases, the transfer is not a SWIFT transfer even though it is international."

I believe this is the case here. That makes sense hence the low fees.

1 hour ago, thaibreaker said:

I opened my Revolut account when I was in Indonesia. I just used VPN pointing to my home country, Norway. Got my first 3 cards sent to Indonesia for free, with DHL. Took 3 days. Metal abbonement.

Since I opened my Revolut account, I haven’t bothered getting a physical card. I’ve been using it daily for months with just the virtual and digital cards, both in stores and for all kinds of online purchases, and I have never had a payment fail when attempting to use a virtual card for payment.

One reason I never ordered a physical card is because I am not presently staying at the address on my Revolut account. I’d also heard certain activities can trigger additional KYC checks, and requesting a card to be shipped somewhere that doesn’t match your registered residence is one of them. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve done anything wrong, but it can result in your account being temporarily restricted or frozen while Revolut reviews your account. If that happens, you may have to provide additional documentation, such as proof of identity, an explanation of certain transactions, and in some cases evidence of your source of funds or source of wealth before the restrictions are lifted. This is what Gemini had to say about it:

Overseas Card Shipping: Requesting a physical debit card to an international address that contradicts your registered residence is a well-documented risk trigger. Compliance algorithms flag address mismatches between your legal tax jurisdiction and physical delivery destinations to prevent identity theft and illicit account proxy use.

I’m assuming you haven’t had any KYC requests from Revolut after ordering those three cards, which is great. I’m also guessing you prefer using physical cards because you don’t use a digital wallet, or maybe it’s simply what you’re used to. For me, I haven’t seen much reason to carry another card that could get lost or stolen when my phone already does everything I need.

I suppose I could have a card sent to the address registered on my Revolut account and then have someone forward it to me, but even then I’m not sure what I’d gain. If there’s a real advantage to having the physical card that I’m overlooking, I’d genuinely be interested to hear about it.

Edited August 7Aug 7 by FriscoKid

5 hours ago, Keeenok Powell said:

A shxt option.

4 hours ago, newbee2022 said:

It's one option. Period

Why don't you just hold your hands up and admit it was an incredibly stupid suggestion?

39 minutes ago, FriscoKid said:

Since I opened my Revolut account, I haven’t bothered getting a physical card. I’ve been using it daily for months with just the virtual and digital cards, both in stores and for all kinds of online purchases, and I have never had a payment fail when attempting to use a virtual card for payment.

One reason I never ordered a physical card is because I am not presently staying at the address on my Revolut account. I’d also heard certain activities can trigger additional KYC checks, and requesting a card to be shipped somewhere that doesn’t match your registered residence is one of them. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve done anything wrong, but it can result in your account being temporarily restricted or frozen while Revolut reviews your account. If that happens, you may have to provide additional documentation, such as proof of identity, an explanation of certain transactions, and in some cases evidence of your source of funds or source of wealth before the restrictions are lifted. This is what Gemini had to say about it:

Overseas Card Shipping: Requesting a physical debit card to an international address that contradicts your registered residence is a well-documented risk trigger. Compliance algorithms flag address mismatches between your legal tax jurisdiction and physical delivery destinations to prevent identity theft and illicit account proxy use.

I’m assuming you haven’t had any KYC requests from Revolut after ordering those three cards, which is great. I’m also guessing you prefer using physical cards because you don’t use a digital wallet, or maybe it’s simply what you’re used to. For me, I haven’t seen much reason to carry another card that could get lost or stolen when my phone already does everything I need.

I suppose I could have a card sent to the address registered on my Revolut account and then have someone forward it to me, but even then I’m not sure what I’d gain. If there’s a real advantage to having the physical card that I’m overlooking, I’d genuinely be interested to hear about it.

Thanks for the input.

No, I haven't had any issues or any questions about my time in Indonesia, which was before and during covid in 2020 and 2021, or sending cards there. I'm registered by address in Norway.

Nor have I had any questions about my long time stay in Thailand (transferring money monthly to my Thai bank).

I'm not anymore using my Revolut physical cards either. I too use virtual cards for online purchases, so my insurance will come to use (travel and purchase). I have mainly used Revolut as a hub for transferring my pension, and then forwarded to my Krungsri bank in Thailand at very low fees.

At Krungsri I never use my cards either, only scan at shops, paying bills online, and cardless withdrawals at ATMs.

The only advantage I can think of with a physical card, is if paid for in a shop with a Revolut card (if not online), you will have a purchase insurance at certain memberships (I am a metal member).

And, I like to have a backup physical card, if any unforeseen issue occurs. Being prepared with a plan B, can't hurt in today's world.

Edited August 7Aug 7 by thaibreaker

44 minutes ago, thaibreaker said:

And, I like to have a backup physical card, if any unforeseen issue occurs. Being prepared with a plan B, can't hurt in today's world.

Thanks for your feedback. I agree with having a Plan B. For me, that means always keeping some cash on hand in multiple currencies (especially when I travel) in case something goes wrong in the digital world.

I also have all of my digital cards spread across three different mobile devices. That way, if one device is lost, damaged, or stolen, I can still use another one to make payments. It’s a bit like having three copies of all my digital cards.

That said, there was a time four or five years ago in Thailand when some of the contactless terminals were still older models and couldn’t always read virtual cards from a phone. Occasionally, I had to insert the physical card instead. Fortunately, I haven’t run into that problem in Thailand over the last couple of years.

I have, however, had a couple of instances in Japan where digital cards weren’t accepted, particularly at hotels when settling the bill, and they insisted on a physical card. I also remember having a few payment issues at train stations in Japan paying for train tickets because you could pay for the ticket online first but then to pick up the physical ticket at the train station you needed to insert the physical card.

I don’t mean to go off on a tangent, but Japan is an interesting case. People often think of it as being very technologically advanced, and in many ways it is. However, compared with places like China or even Thailand, some of the payment technology is surprisingly dated. Japan often adopts technology early but doesn’t replace it until there’s a compelling reason to do so, so it’s not unusual to encounter systems in Japan that are a generation or two behind.

Anyway, it sounds like you’ve more or less switched over to digital card payments as well. For me, it started when I was using Wise regularly. I had two physical Wise cards but hardly ever used them. When I switched to Revolut, I decided not to bother ordering physical cards anymore.

It’s also good to hear that Revolut hasn’t put you through any KYC hassles. I have read some nightmare stories about Revolut locking people's accounts for no apparent reason, just some algorithm flagging people.

Large transfers into Thailand seem to be one of the things that can trigger extra scrutiny. Years ago, I had a KYC nightmare with Wise after using it to transfer money to Thailand for my retirement visa. They were threatening to close my account if I couldn’t provide the required SoW documents, and it eventually reached the point where they kept asking for more paperwork even though I had nothing else to give them. Eventually they accepted my documents, but the stressful process left a bad taste in my mouth.

Because of that experience, I’m being very careful with Revolut. I mainly use it as a debit card for everyday purchases and avoid using it for larger banking transactions in the hope of not triggering another needless KYC review.

10 hours ago, newbee2022 said:

It's one option. Period

If you have your period it’s quite expectable that you are grumpy.

9 hours ago, thaibreaker said:

Krungsri charges nothing. The amount I send from Revolut, is the same amount credited.

Same with Kasikorn & Bangkok Bank though I do my FX conversions in the Revolut App when FX rates look good, then send the THB to Thailand when I need to.

Send 120,000 THB from my Revolut “THB Pot” & 120,000 THB lands in my BBL/KBank account, Revolut charges me a 144.11 THB “International Transfer fee but no fees from the receiving bank (NB there was a fee when I did the in-App conversion some time before).

Edited August 7Aug 7 by SamSpade
Added International Transfer Fee info

1 hour ago, SamSpade said:

Same with Kasikorn & Bangkok Bank though I do my FX conversions in the Revolut App when FX rates look good, then send the THB to Thailand when I need to.

Send 120,000 THB from my Revolut “THB Pot” & 120,000 THB lands in my BBL/KBank account, Revolut charges me a 144.11 THB “International Transfer fee but no fees from the receiving bank (NB there was a fee when I did the in-App conversion some time before).

Sounds about right yes. I'm sending only 50-75k each time, so my fee is a little lower. Good idea about the conversion rate.

Can't complain 😆

2 hours ago, Keeenok Powell said:

If you have your period it’s quite expectable that you are grumpy.

You're single, never married, living in a small rented room, no friends except alc? Would that be the description if I ask someone about you?? I ask for a friend who read your posts and comments

7 hours ago, Keeps said:

Why don't you just hold your hands up and admit it was an incredibly stupid suggestion?

Why you can't stop spouting nonsense all the time?

I maintain a UK address (my sister's) for my UK bank, so presumably I could use this to open a Revolut account, even though I'm living in Thailand? Then, a physical Revolut debit card would be sent to me at my UK address and my sister could forward it on to me in Thailand.

With Wise, I could use my Thai address for the account and the Wise debit card would be sent to my Thai address.

Is this right?

2 minutes ago, brewsterbudgen said:

I maintain a UK address (my sister's) for my UK bank, so presumably I could use this to open a Revolut account, even though I'm living in Thailand? Then, a physical Revolut debit card would be sent to me at my UK address and my sister could forward it on to me in Thailand.

With Wise, I could use my Thai address for the account and the Wise debit card would be sent to my Thai address.

Is this right?

I opened my Revolut account whilst on a trip to visit my parents & used their address, no proof of address was required, Debit card was sent to the address whilst I was there.

Friend of mine did his all from Thailand using his father’s address again no proof of address was required & he didn’t bother with the Debit card (which is optional & costs £4.99) until his next visit to the UK but I see no problem with your sister posting it to you in Thailand.

FWIW I did tell Revolut that I was only temporarily resident in UK, was Tax Resident in Thailand (gave them my TIN) & use my Thai Mobile number for the account.

6 minutes ago, SamSpade said:

I opened my Revolut account whilst on a trip to visit my parents & used their address, no proof of address was required, Debit card was sent to the address whilst I was there.

Friend of mine did his all from Thailand using his father’s address again no proof of address was required & he didn’t bother with the Debit card (which is optional & costs £4.99) until his next visit to the UK but I see no problem with your sister posting it to you in Thailand.

FWIW I did tell Revolut that I was only temporarily resident in UK, was Tax Resident in Thailand (gave them my TIN) & use my Thai Mobile number for the account.

Thanks. AI tell me that I can use a Thai address for a Revolut account; are they wrong?

If you prefer Revolut's interface over Wise, you do not need to risk using a UK address. Revolut officially operates in Thailand and allows you to register legally using your real Thai residential address.

By registering legally in Thailand, you eliminate the risk of a sudden account freeze, and Revolut will mail the physical debit card directly to your Thai home. You can still link your UK bank account to transfer your British pounds onto the card.