Open A Thai Bank Account From The Usa?

[louielou]

Hi,

I just paid for the Reseration fee on a condo. Now I need to pay the downpayment. I am in the USA and can't make it out there for a few months. MY QUESTION IS (please don't answer if you are going to abuse me for being stupid): Can I open a Thai Bank Account from the USA? Do they have any branches out here? THANKS!

louielou

[GungaDin]

I think bkk bank have a branch in NY but someone with more knowledge than me, will be able to help you.

[think_too_mut]

Hi,

I just paid for the Reseration fee on a condo. Now I need to pay the downpayment. I am in the USA and can't make it out there for a few months.

"Reservation Fee"? Sounds like a brand new condo.

The deposit can be paid from a Thai account. In that case, it does not count as part of full payment, full price must be paid before settlement.

Then, the deposit is returned into Thai bank account.

Talk to the developer and ask if you can pay the deposit directly from overseas account into theirs.

Not surre, but that must be possible as full payment can be (in fact, MUST be) made that way.

Then you don't need to open any Thai account.

[pkrv]

Hi,

I just paid for the Reseration fee on a condo. Now I need to pay the downpayment. I am in the USA and can't make it out there for a few months. MY QUESTION IS (please don't answer if you are going to abuse me for being stupid): Can I open a Thai Bank Account from the USA? Do they have any branches out here? THANKS!

louielou

I doubt it very much. Bangkok Bank (IMO the best) have a branch in the UK and I failed to achive this. This is what you need to do

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Open-Bank-Ac...25#entry1735189

I made a slight mistake but it was corrected in a couple of posts.

[longball53098]

Yes Bangkok Bank does have a New York office and is chartered as a USA bank. You can transfer funds to Thailand using that office but in this case I would say what already has been said. Arrange to transfer funds from your current US bank to the account of the condo people.

On a side question you seem to be moving rather fast here. Are you sure this is all on the up and up?

[teacup]

I think bkk bank have a branch in NY but someone with more knowledge than me, will be able to help you.

Well I talked to them last time and they said "NO" you can't, coz they are only acting as the "inter bank". Guess U have to open it in thailand, so you can use the NY branch for the transfer to your thai account.

[thaihome]

The answer is to tranfer directly into devopers account. Direct deposits into other people account is very common way to pay for things here and all over Asia.

Ask your US bank about making a SWIFT transfer, it make take some convincing they can do it.

TH

Edited October 2, 2008 by thaihome

[louielou]

Thanks for the thoughts on this people! ALL HELPFULL. Awesome website by the way - so many members! Just FYI - it is one of the Ananda Ideo projects. Their staff is a little slow email/ communication-wise, but the contract appears thoughfully constructed and detailed. 2010 complete. Yeah! (I hope the world doesn't change too much by then).

[Khun Bob]

It may be possible to open an account in Thailand if you have an account in your home country, with one of the larger international banks in Thailand - ie HSBC, Citibank etc.

I havent personally done this, but I do know that if you are an HSBC premier customer then they have a service that will assist you opening an account in their other locations. From research 2/3 years ago this may prove to be difficult with HSBC.

Do a google for a list of international banks in Thailand and then find which have a presence in USA and try those. I've heard good things about Standard Chartered, DBS and OCBC. Also, it may be possible to open an offshore USD account in say Singapore/Hong Kong with one of the Asian banks, and then they may help you get a Thai based account.

FYI : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Banks_by_country

HTH

Personally, I wouldn't want to take the risk of sending large amounts of money to a developer, before I am doubly certain that there can be no double crossing on the deal.

[pkrv]

Before the moderators remove this from this thread it is a condominium issue.

1) teacup - Thanks for the confirmation - yep the London and NY branches work in exactly the same way - They are there to support trade not retail banking. To give an example. Just now I placed a call to Bangkok Bank London explaining I had a Bangkok Bank passbook savings account (at the head office) and a Thai water bill could they set up a direct payment mechanism from London - NO -was the answer. There are no links with the retail bank.

2) thaihome/Kuhn Bob - At some stage you must start to make up front payments for a new condo. And with a developer this should be in stages - regardless of if you transfer directly to the developer (which I did) or from a Thai account. It is the same thing, you no longer have the money. Obviously there is an audit trail of the money in either case (quite frankly one is as good as the other).

3) Kuhn Bob - As to HSBC's premier account. Yes you are correct to point this out it may suit some people who wish to keep LARGE amounts of funds in investments with them. But you know what? I feel I get a better deal with the local Bangkok Bank. Tougher to work with but IMO worth the effort. Mind you there is no simpler thing in life than giving your money away!

Edited October 6, 2008 by pkrv