Changing Money (dollars To Baht)

[joesohum]

Can any one tell me where the best place it to change money? I heard super rich is a good one over by BIG C. and where is the best place to check rates daily? With the fluctuation of the baht. Is it worth buying dollars or euros when the baht is low, and selling them back when the exchange is in our favor? Or is that too much trouble? Any suggestions. Thanks in advance.

[frequentatore]

I heard super rich is a good one over by BIG C. and where is the best place to check rates daily?

Yes, compare with the bank, it's worth it to go there for large sums of money.

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http://www.xe.com/ucc/

[Serendipitist]

Super Rich usually gives the best 'tourist' bid (buy rate) when compared to bank rates. w/ larger denomination notes giving the best rate.

In general three things very much limit your 'trading' any minor cross currency such as $/baht from LOS. (The majors viz - £, Euro,Yen..)

The spread - the difference between the offer rate and the bid rate is typically well over 100 tics (points) on minor cross 'tourist' rates such as Euro/baht & over 50 tics on dollar/baht. Consider that, even for professionals, trading same profitably requires great skill even when the bid/offer is at best interbank spread (anywhere between about 3 and 15 tics), and you will start to get the picture...

Unless you are a registered market participant you're effectively 'disallowed' from regularly doing so in amounts which will gain you such a slim spread.

& the amounts you will need to trade (read 'risk') upfront in cash, without margined gearing, would be rather enormous for you to stand any chance of gaining worthwhile profits whatsoever.

In short: forget about it. Sorry!

[frenchFARANGbkk]

Who is this super rich? Where is it?

IT seems that the best bank rate in Thailand is most of the time found at SIAM CITY BANK, at least for EURO :

http://www.scib.co.th/Bankrate/

[Spee]

Can any one tell me where the best place it to change money? I heard super rich is a good one over by BIG C. and where is the best place to check rates daily?

Your ATM card is probably the best bet for exchange rates. Anyone in that business exclusively is going to take a piece for buying and selling. Compared to an ATM, it isn't worth it to use a currency exchange rate.

If you ever want to compare, there are many exchange rate conversion web sites, to help you compare how big of a piece they are taking. Try www.exchangerate.com or one of the others.

[frequentatore]

Who is this super rich? Where is it?

Super Rich is on a small street close to Big C (Radjamri road). Ask for The Thai Farmers' Bank, Super Rich is across the street.

[Serendipitist]

Can any one tell me where the best place it to change money? I heard super rich is a good one over by BIG C. and where is the best place to check rates daily?

Your ATM card is probably the best bet for exchange rates. Anyone in that business exclusively is going to take a piece for buying and selling. Compared to an ATM, it isn't worth it to use a currency exchange rate.

If you ever want to compare, there are many exchange rate conversion web sites, to help you compare how big of a piece they are taking. Try www.exchangerate.com or one of the others.

I beg to differ. ATM rate may not always be best. However, I'm wary of stepping into 'investment advice' territory otherwise I'd be keen to argue this one in detail. Suffice to say, see your banks small print for more and always DYOR...

[joesohum]

there are two super rich exchangers on the same street. i use the one on the left side heading away from the wtc. but its worth it to check both for there rates and then decide. thanks everyone for answering my inquiry

[bkk_mike]

Personally - I've used Siam Exchange opposite Siam Discovery Centre on the road leading to Victory monument. It's a better rate than the banks - i.e. yesterday (Saturday) Bangkok Bank was giving 74.47 for £1 - but I got 75.05. And being a Saturday, there's no active FX market, so the market didn't move to cause the rates to change.

I ended up going to both as I had some traveller's cheques (just back from holiday), and Siam Exchange would only take £200 worth, so went to the Bangkok Bank exchange place on the 6th floor of MBK with the rest. The odd thing is, SE gave me a far better rate on cash than the bank, but the rate for the traveller's cheques was only marginally better than the bank. (8 baht difference on £100 after charges).

I would never bother changing money back and forth, simply because the spread means the only person making money in the long term is the exchange. Only change money when you have to. In my case, I'm paid in Sterling, and have expenses in baht...

[ZOVOX]

If you want to make money buying/selling currency, go to hong kong and open a powervantage multi-currency account !! The account is available in about 12 different currencies and you can do evrything over the internet. they also have all exchange rate info and offer good exchange rates and no charges. it's the best account i've ever had: you can also buy and sell stocks, have time deposits, and it has regular savings and current accounts sections as well. And you get interest on your foreign currency savings - i'm currently getting 5% on my new zealand dollars, so you are accrueing interest in between your currency exchanges.

[lopburi3]

Personally - I've used Siam Exchange opposite Siam Discovery Centre on the road leading to Victory monument. It's a better rate than the banks - i.e. yesterday (Saturday) Bangkok Bank was giving 74.47 for £1 - but I got 75.05. And being a Saturday, there's no active FX market, so the market didn't move to cause the rates to change.

It opened at 74.92 today so there was a change over the weekend. The Friday closing rate was 74.47. So you did help yourself but on a normal workday don't believe it would be that much but never exchange cash so not up on it.

[royar2002]

I allways change to THB before transfering the money to Thailand and I never see a bank who gave me more money if I transfer foreigncurrency and change in Thailand.

[lopburi3]

I allways change to THB before transfering the money to Thailand and I never see a bank who gave me more money if I transfer foreigncurrency and change in Thailand.

Could you please provide an example (currency and amount changed/date/amount of baht received). Thanks.

[Spee]

Could you please provide an example (currency and amount changed/date/amount of baht received).

I've sent recently using Western Union, where they handle the currency conversion. With the Uk pound trading at 1GBP to about 74.5 TB on the open market, Western Union will convert at about 72-72.5 TB. In other words, they will typically take about 2-3% on the exchange rate, which is high, but not as bad as many sidewalk exchange counters.

[lopburi3]

Could you please provide an example (currency and amount changed/date/amount of baht received).

I've sent recently using Western Union, where they handle the currency conversion. With the Uk pound trading at 1GBP to about 74.5 TB on the open market, Western Union will convert at about 72-72.5 TB. In other words, they will typically take about 2-3% on the exchange rate, which is high, but not as bad as many sidewalk exchange counters.

Current Bangkok Bank rate for 1 GBP cash is 74.92

Current Bangkok Bank rate for 1 GBP TT (wire transfer) is 75.8675

Current XE midrate is 76.2018

Current Oanda interbank is 76.32457

So if you do a transfer from UK bank, sending Pounds, you will receive 75.8675 when it is converted into Baht here in Thailand (if done today). True there will be a fee involved at sending bank and a few baht here but I seriously doubt more money would get into the Thai account with exchange done in UK - and I suspect it would be much less even with the fees for a large transfer. But am willing to be proven wrong if that is the case. If Royar2002 can show otherwise am sure many of us will value from the information.

[royar2002]

My bank in Norway change 10000 NOK to THB and transfer to my Thai account every month at the same date. I always get 58 200-59000, somtimes when I mail my bank and order ekstra money, they send NOK and I end up with 1-2k less. I never checked the rates and when it takes 4-5 days from norway to Thailand the rates can change and I know my bank Krung Thai is not the best one in Thailand. After some posting here I checked with my Bank DNB Last time the money was change at a rate 100THB=17.05 NOK, 10000NOK=58651.24THB I end up with 57961.00 after transfer and fee to krung Thai bank. The money arrive at august 3 and i checked with Siam city bank same date. NOK Bank Note rate 5.73.

10 000 NOK will give me 57300 and after paying for transfer, fee and exchangecost I will end with less if I transfer NOK. I can see the rates are going up, so next time I transfer I will do half in THB and half in NOK. A couple of years ago I used my Visa card and thats was expensive. I think they charged me 4.5% every time I used and ATM to withdraw money from Norwegian account.

[lopburi3]

My bank in Norway change 10000 NOK to THB and transfer to my Thai account every month at the same date. I always get 58 200-59000, somtimes when I mail my bank and order ekstra money, they send NOK and I end up with 1-2k less. I never checked the rates and when it takes 4-5 days from norway to Thailand the rates can change and I know my bank Krung Thai is not the best one in Thailand. After some posting here I checked with my Bank DNB Last time the money was change at a rate 100THB=17.05 NOK, 10000NOK=58651.24THB I end up with 57961.00 after transfer and fee to krung Thai bank. The money arrive at august 3 and i checked with Siam city bank same date. NOK Bank Note rate 5.73.

10 000 NOK will give me 57300 and after paying for transfer, fee and exchangecost I will end with less if I transfer NOK. I can see the rates are going up, so next time I transfer I will do half in THB and half in NOK. A couple of years ago I used my Visa card and thats was expensive. I think they charged me 4.5% every time I used and ATM to withdraw money from Norwegian account.

It will be interesting to see how it comes out

On August 3 Bangkok Bank would have paid 5.84875 less fees but banknote rate would have been 5.65.

[ZOVOX]

I've had bank accounts all over the world, including u.k, u.s, offshore, swiss, hongkong and now thailand. whether it is best to convert before or after transferring money to thailand depends on which bank is involved - the best thing to do is to go to the banks website and get the tt transfer rates and work it out yourself !!

also, anybody having problems with opening a bank account in thailand, go to the siam commercial bank. I went to the branch in thonglor, bangkok and just handed over my passport and the account was opened no questions asked. the passport had no visa - tourists welcome !! they even gave me interest on my account, which i read somewhere that they were stopping, and they gave me an atm card with mastercard debit facilities on it - you never get one of those in the u.k without a good credit history !!