Thai Banks

[meatball]

Hi,

Which Thai banks do you prefer to have an account and do your banking with?

I see Siam Commercial Bank have a very wide network of ATM in Pattaya..

But there are lots of banks to choose from..

I did like to have different views from fellow forumers here..

Thanks..

[Naam]

we are banking with Siam Commercial since five years. opened an account when we were tourists. can't poll preference because have no experience with other banks. we use SCB debit cards for our purchases besides that our relation with SCB is limited to withdrawing twice a year the necessary cash and once a year the confirmation letter for the immigration. some months ago the manager was quite helpful when two of my friends from abroad opened accounts without having a residential address in Thailand.

[meatball]

Hi Naam, u living in Pattaya too?

That's cool..

By the way, there are charges for Depositing and Withdrawing money from the Bank over the counter right?

By withdrawing money twice a year will result in having lots of cash at home right?

It seems quite unsafe to do so

[johnnyk]

Kasikorn gives me good in-person service, excellent on-line service and they have been rapidly increasing their ATM network.

I like their colours too!

[Naam]

Hi Naam, u living in Pattaya too?

i do.

By the way, there are charges for Depositing and Withdrawing money from the Bank over the counter right?

no charges!

By withdrawing money twice a year will result in having lots of cash at home right?

those withdrawals are small sums of money. our living expenses are paid by my wife's daily earnings. she does laundry and house cleaning for three neighbours. whatever she brings home in the evening is spent the same day for some sticky rice but mainly for cheap booze.

[Naam]

Hi Naam, u living in Pattaya too?

i do.

By the way, there are charges for Depositing and Withdrawing money from the Bank over the counter right?

no charges!

By withdrawing money twice a year will result in having lots of cash at home right?

those withdrawals are small sums of money. our living expenses are paid by my wife's daily earnings. she does laundry and house cleaning for three neighbours. whatever she brings home in the evening is spent the same day for some sticky rice but mainly for cheap booze.

i forgot to mention that our neighbours for whom my wife works are very generous people. we get all the food leftovers which their dogs refuse to eat and sometimes they even chip in and help us with our electricity bill which is between 10 and 12,000 Baht a month

[meatball]

errr, Naam..

Are u joking with me??

[meatball]

Btw is Thai Military Bank controlled or operated by the Thai Military or is the Thai Military substantial shareholders of the bank?

[Scott]

I have two bank accounts, one with Kasikorn and one with Bangkok Bank. Had reasonably good luck with both. Voted for Kasikorn though because that's the one I use the most.

[harrry]

1. we get all the food leftovers which their dogs refuse to eat and sometimes they even chip in and help us with our electricity bill which is between 10 and 12,000 Baht a month

Your neighbors must have mistaken the yellow star tech uniform for some sort of foreign monks outfit.

Edited September 24, 2008 by harrry

[longball53098]

I voted for SCB simply because I have 3 accounts and 4 years history of using their services. I am happy with what they offer and the online system works well for me.

I also have had exposure to BKK Bank and KTB and both seem to do a decent job for the customer

[hyperdimension]

A funny thing that happened to me was that I had left around 500 baht in my SCB account to withdraw in case of emergency. I never normally use it or check it. Then recently when I did actually need to use it, i.e. it was an emergency situation, there was almost nothing left! So I checked the account online and found that they were stealing 50 baht from the account every month... "stealing" sounds a bit harsh, but that's what it felt like. At a time when I needed that money most, it had all already been taken away from me.

Anyway, normally I only ever use banks for withdrawing money (via ATMs) from my offshore account for normal spending. On my computer I used to always have around 10 web browser pages open of each of the banks' exchange rate pages and when I needed to withdraw, I'd do it from the bank that would give me the best rate. It used to always be SCB, so I was quite loyal to them, until they started charging 20 baht per withdrawal recently. So I'm now a bit smarter and use this site:

http://bankexchangerates.daytodaydata.net

I no longer need to have 10 pages open and just choose to withdraw from the ATM of the bank that is listed at the top of the page for the particular currency I need to exchange from.

[rott]

Hi Naam, u living in Pattaya too?

i do.

By the way, there are charges for Depositing and Withdrawing money from the Bank over the counter right?

no charges!

By withdrawing money twice a year will result in having lots of cash at home right?

those withdrawals are small sums of money. our living expenses are paid by my wife's daily earnings. she does laundry and house cleaning for three neighbours. whatever she brings home in the evening is spent the same day for some sticky rice but mainly for cheap booze.

Can I please have your wife's mobile number?

[rott]

A funny thing that happened to me was that I had left around 500 baht in my SCB account to withdraw in case of emergency. I never normally use it or check it. Then recently when I did actually need to use it, i.e. it was an emergency situation, there was almost nothing left! So I checked the account online and found that they were stealing 50 baht from the account every month... "stealing" sounds a bit harsh, but that's what it felt like. At a time when I needed that money most, it had all already been taken away from me.

Anyway, normally I only ever use banks for withdrawing money (via ATMs) from my offshore account for normal spending. On my computer I used to always have around 10 web browser pages open of each of the banks' exchange rate pages and when I needed to withdraw, I'd do it from the bank that would give me the best rate. It used to always be SCB, so I was quite loyal to them, until they started charging 20 baht per withdrawal recently. So I'm now a bit smarter and use this site:

http://bankexchangerates.daytodaydata.net

I no longer need to have 10 pages open and just choose to withdraw from the ATM of the bank that is listed at the top of the page for the particular currency I need to exchange from.

You keep 500 (FIVE HUNDRED) baht in the account for an emergency? For fcuks sake, won't even cover a trip to the Blue House.

[harrry]

Do you mean that the 500B I left in the Bangkok Bank Chiangmai 30 years ago will be gone. I thought with compound interest it would fund my retirement there in a few weeks.

Edited September 25, 2008 by harrry

[robbiecia]

Hi Naam, u living in Pattaya too?

i do.

By the way, there are charges for Depositing and Withdrawing money from the Bank over the counter right?

no charges!

By withdrawing money twice a year will result in having lots of cash at home right?

those withdrawals are small sums of money. our living expenses are paid by my wife's daily earnings. she does laundry and house cleaning for three neighbours. whatever she brings home in the evening is spent the same day for some sticky rice but mainly for cheap booze.

i forgot to mention that our neighbours for whom my wife works are very generous people. we get all the food leftovers which their dogs refuse to eat and sometimes they even chip in and help us with our electricity bill which is between 10 and 12,000 Baht a month

errr, Naam..

Are u joking with me??

Klingons NEVER joke

[robbiecia]

Kbank gets my vote

I've had an account with SCB for years.but when it came time to apply for a credit card,they started quoting lots of rules for farang.

Went to Kbank...................credit card no problem

[PoorSucker]

I voted for SCB simply because I have 3 accounts and 4 years history of using their services. I am happy with what they offer and the online system works well for me.

I also have had exposure to BKK Bank and KTB and both seem to do a decent job for the customer

Same Same, 3 accounts in SCB, No problems.

[hyperdimension]

A funny thing that happened to me was that I had left around 500 baht in my SCB account to withdraw in case of emergency. I never normally use it or check it. Then recently when I did actually need to use it, i.e. it was an emergency situation, there was almost nothing left! So I checked the account online and found that they were stealing 50 baht from the account every month... "stealing" sounds a bit harsh, but that's what it felt like. At a time when I needed that money most, it had all already been taken away from me.

Anyway, normally I only ever use banks for withdrawing money (via ATMs) from my offshore account for normal spending. On my computer I used to always have around 10 web browser pages open of each of the banks' exchange rate pages and when I needed to withdraw, I'd do it from the bank that would give me the best rate. It used to always be SCB, so I was quite loyal to them, until they started charging 20 baht per withdrawal recently. So I'm now a bit smarter and use this site:

http://bankexchangerates.daytodaydata.net

I no longer need to have 10 pages open and just choose to withdraw from the ATM of the bank that is listed at the top of the page for the particular currency I need to exchange from.

You keep 500 (FIVE HUNDRED) baht in the account for an emergency? For fcuks sake, won't even cover a trip to the Blue House.

500 baht is two full days of work for a lot of people in Thailand! It would get me ten to fifteen dishes of food! And now the bank has taken pretty much all of it! Damned crooks!

Edited September 26, 2008 by hyperdimension

[hyperdimension]

Do you mean that the 500B I left in the Bangkok Bank Chiangmai 30 years ago will be gone. I thought with compound interest it would fund my retirement there in a few weeks.

Yes, it will all be gone if they slice a bit of money off every month and if the interest that you earn on it does not make up for the loss.

For me, effectively SCB were slicing a large percentage of my money, starting from 10% (i.e. 50 baht of 500 baht is 10%), until finally it got down to around 57 baht left in the account, in which case they sliced 50/57 = 88% of the total account value, to be left with 7 baht. So now there's no more money left for them to take, unless they start introducing negative account values, in which case we'd end up owing them money like a credit card, and maybe even charge interest on top! It's not tatally implausible I think.

[aurelius]

Some banks (SCB, KBank at least) have increased the minimum balance amount on a dormant account to 2,000bt (used to be 500bt). Dormant seems to mean no activity in the last 6 months.

[Naam]

500 baht is two full days of work for a lot of people in Thailand! It would get me ten to fifteen dishes of food! And now the bank has taken pretty much all of it! Damned crooks!

are you asking for donations?

[lannarebirth]

I know other people have said that they have good service from Kasikorn Thai bank, but in my experience (and I've dealt with maybe 10 Thai banks); it is the worst bank in Thailand, bar none.

[cclub75]

Btw is Thai Military Bank controlled or operated by the Thai Military or is the Thai Military substantial shareholders of the bank?

The Ministry of Finance is shareholder. After "controled" or "operated" by the military, I don't know... But TMB has certainly some tight uniforms (or family/friends) among its staff.

The dutch financial group ING bought 30 % last october.

[BEENTHEREDONETHAT]

Hi Naam, u living in Pattaya too?

i do.

By the way, there are charges for Depositing and Withdrawing money from the Bank over the counter right?

no charges!

By withdrawing money twice a year will result in having lots of cash at home right?

those withdrawals are small sums of money. our living expenses are paid by my wife's daily earnings. she does laundry and house cleaning for three neighbours. whatever she brings home in the evening is spent the same day for some sticky rice but mainly for cheap booze.

i forgot to mention that our neighbours for whom my wife works are very generous people. we get all the food leftovers which their dogs refuse to eat and sometimes they even chip in and help us with our electricity bill which is between 10 and 12,000 Baht a month

I believe I saw her going to work the other day in your stretch limosine. It's nice that you send someone along with the driver to open the door for her.

[harrry]

Btw is Thai Military Bank controlled or operated by the Thai Military or is the Thai Military substantial shareholders of the bank?

The Ministry of Finance is shareholder. After "controled" or "operated" by the military, I don't know... But TMB has certainly some tight uniforms (or family/friends) among its staff.

The dutch financial group ING bought 30 % last october.

If you go to their website or google their history you will see it was set up to hold the funds of the military ....(possibly so they could not be used against them in coups which seem frequent in thailand).

[Heng]

Still on board with HSBC, especially with their point and click transfer ease between HSBC Singapore and HSBC Thailand... however a bit concerned about their layoff announcement. Any other "international" banks with the same type of service (ala HSBC Premier to Premier) transfers? Surely there are others, but they don't do the same kind of marketing HSBC does, so a lot of times folks might just not know about them.

[lifeisrandom]

HSBC Premier Accounts have lousy ATM/exchange rates (atleast they did a year ago) when I looked into them.

HSBC is much safer than any Thai bank.

[hyperdimension]

500 baht is two full days of work for a lot of people in Thailand! It would get me ten to fifteen dishes of food! And now the bank has taken pretty much all of it! Damned crooks!

are you asking for donations?

I'd like it if the bank returned what they stole from me but the chances of that are probably low. As a farang, 500 baht is a small amount to me, but it's almost two days of work for their tellers who earn around 8000 baht per month. But really, it's the principle that is important here - they drove my account down to the ground until there was nothing left to take. I had originally deposited 60K baht in it a while ago but had decided to move most of that money elsewhere and left around 500 baht in case of emergency. So when the time came recently that I needed that cash (due to a withdrawal problem with a different account at another bank that I usually use) it was all gone. So imagine how I felt when I went to withdraw the cash I thought I had that I needed. I wonder how an ordinary Thai person earning 5000 to 10,000 baht per month would feel.

50 baht per month is a small amount, and 20 baht per withdrawal is small too. But think about this: if these fees are so small, why did the bank make the decisions to actually charge these fees, when they already have billions of baht? Because these small amounts actually do make a significant difference to their earnings.

Edited September 29, 2008 by hyperdimension

[harrry]

Seems as if that bank is generous. I have been looking at the HSBC Thailand site and the have a Service fee for non-resident

THB account holder of 500THB a month.