I bow down humbly before the great TV members to ask the 'where do i get' question:

I urgently need to set up a bank account to accept funds that will be going to a charitable foundation (schoolforlife).

We have donors who will be transferring sizable amounts (500k thb) from over-seas; so we need good exchange rates and preferably internet friendly - ie capable of accepting pay-pal (or similar).

It will take ages to scour all the banks, so if anyone can offer advice, much appreciated - its for a good cause, after-all.

I would move this out of the Chiang Mai forum to get a broader response.

In my experience with Kasikornbank (kasikornbank.com) I have received pretty good service, enjoy internet banking and seem to get okay fx rates along with having successfully received transfers from both PayPal and overseas banks.

JxP

I am responsible for a foundation's banking as well. We have used both Kasikornbank and Siam Commercial. I personally find Siam Commercial to be better of the two primarily because I find they have more English documents/pages on the website. Other than this, they are pretty much both the same.

I have not found any paypal - friendly service in Thailand yet but I've only looked for it recently.

Additionally, Bangkok Bank has been recommended to me from several people as well because their house of service are much longer. For example, the branch in Meechok Plaza goes into the evening during the week and I also believe that it's open part of Saturday.

I also don't know if you've done it before but all banks have been MUCH more stringent with opening a charity/foundation bank account. Besides minutes from the Board meeting, we needed to have a majority of the Board members come to the bank with us to sign (even if they did not have signing authority).

ok, thanks guys. I will just open a standard acct for the timebeing to get the funds lodged in and will go about setting up something more 'legitimate' when i get some more feedback.

@ Admin: pls leave in CM forum because I'm hoping to get some feedback re local branches and helpfull banking staff.

Cheers.