Hi,

I have been working on a contract for a UK company and invoicing through my Thai company, which I set up in order to pay myself a wage in Thailand so I could get a visa (seems all my contracts are abroad at the moment so I only spend about 90 days a year in Thailand! making the whole thing pointless, but enough of that).

Now I am going to be receiving payment for the work done, which unfortunately is in Sterling, given the way it has devalued over the past couple of months. I have to have the money paid to my company in Thailand, but I also need to transfer some money back to the UK to pay for expenses. I asked my Thai bank if they could receive the money in Sterling and then transfer some of it back out to the UK, without doing the conversion to Thai baht and then back to sterling again, losing me a large chunk in the process, but they say it is not possible.

Has anyone else had this problem, and did they manage to find a solution? Is there some way I can demand that the bank don't convert the money?

Hi,

I have been working on a contract for a UK company and invoicing through my Thai company, which I set up in order to pay myself a wage in Thailand so I could get a visa (seems all my contracts are abroad at the moment so I only spend about 90 days a year in Thailand! making the whole thing pointless, but enough of that).

Now I am going to be receiving payment for the work done, which unfortunately is in Sterling, given the way it has devalued over the past couple of months. I have to have the money paid to my company in Thailand, but I also need to transfer some money back to the UK to pay for expenses. I asked my Thai bank if they could receive the money in Sterling and then transfer some of it back out to the UK, without doing the conversion to Thai baht and then back to sterling again, losing me a large chunk in the process, but they say it is not possible.

Has anyone else had this problem, and did they manage to find a solution? Is there some way I can demand that the bank don't convert the money?

You should be able to open a foreign currency account in Sterling. Bank of Ayudhaya seems to be specializing in this:

http://www.krungsri.com/eng/personal_tranfer05.htm