My husband and I are here on O-A "retirement" visas, which probably explains why Bangkok Bank at KSK welcomed us.

We've only been here six weeks, but are very pleased with their service. We've done two wire transfers from our US credit union and in both cases the money was available to us at BK within 12 hours of calling the credit union.

This week we set things in motion to have my husband's monthly pension check direct deposited into the BK account. In order to do this, we had to fax a form to his former employer, listing the "routing no." from the pink card given to us by the BK manager when we opened our account. That pink card also has the "swift code", which is what the US credit union needed to do the wire transfers. We figure we can save wire transfer fees from the US credit union by having his check directly deposited into BK for our living expenses. The manager at BK actually filed out his employer's form for us, but I think we could have figured it out ourselves!

There are just two things about BK at KSK that don't thrill me.

First, they don't have any safety deposit boxes available now. The manager explained that the laws in Thailand require banks to maintain boxes for five years after non-payment and then they have to be opened in the presence of the police. She said they have a bunch of inactive boxes that are due to have the locks drilled out after the first of the year. She said she'd put our name on the waiting list, but didn't promise if we'd get a box.

Also, we had 6 or 8 checks for small dollar amounts -- rebates, small dividend checks, refunds from our US utilities, etc. None of the checks was for more than $10. I can't remember the exact charge, but the customer service rep at BK said it would be something like 100 baht per check to deposit them, and yes, that money wouldn't be available for 45 days. So, instead I bought one of the pretty Thai-themed Christmas cards at Tops, signed off on the checks and sent them back to our US credit union in a Christmas card to the ladies in the customer service dept who have been so good about arranging the wire transfers.

The Ayuddyha branch I used in Chiang Mai is small, on Huay Kaew beyond Rincome intersection. Decent banking English, but they couldn't discuss Schopenhauer.

I wouldn't expect many Thais to know much about classical music...

LOL good one - (or indeed athiestic pessimism)