Thai Banks To Start Charging For Atm Withdrawals ...

[CMMCB]

"Based on my experience today, I think folks can add UOB to their fee-free list, at least for the time being"

No doubt fee-free, but I suspect that UOB gave you the DCC rate, which is generally the worst of the three possible rates - that is also what has been reported with UOB in the past.

Based on a recent report of a UOB ATM transaction -- a 20,000 Baht withdrawal would be hit with a "hidden fee" of 180 Baht, due to the unfavorable exchange rate that UOB uses.

Since there is only one UOB example so far to indicate that, it would be interesting to compare the UOB test with a GSB or Ayudyha test-- both GSB and Ayudyha appear to be verified for giving the T/T, or 2nd best rate of the three possible rates --

My UOB transaction yesterday gave me better than the SCB and UOB T/T rates for Singapore Dollars and that's been my general experience.

CMMCB

[giruz]

Hi,

K-Bank in central world charged 150THB about 1hr ago.

Ayudhaya didn't charge, ATM located 5 miters from the K-Bank one.

I work in the credit card industry in UK and when an acquirer updates ATM machines it may take up to 3 weeks to have all of them updated (at least in EU with larger banks)...so this may explain why some ATMs from K-Bank do not charge yet.

Regards,

giruzz

[JohnC]

I was of the understanding that The Nationwide Visa/Debit Card had a £300 Daily limit on withdrawals!!Has this changed now?Being as you drew out 20,000 Baht then i guess you have a higher limit!

The £300 limit applies to ATM withdrawals, if you go into the bank and present your N/W debit card you can in theory draw as much as you have in the account, I have in the past used this method and withdrawn £1100 without any problem, I wanted £1000 but the teller pointed out that for the extra £100 I could get a better exchange rate!

The only confusion was when I checked my N/W statement later I had been debited with less than the £1100! I think it was something to do with the fact I asked for £1100 and of course got baht so they must have entered baht on the computer and then N/W changed it to £ s at their exchange rate which was in my favour!

I withdrew 15000 baht yesterday at Ayudha and my statement shows a debit of £282.86 with no fees either end (rate of 53.02 higher than the BKB 51 ! )

[a1falang]

I used a US-based Mastercard debit card to withdraw 16,000 baht at an Bank of Ayudhya ATM. It didn't prompt me about the 150 baht fee, but it did ask if I would accept a conversion rate of 33.10. I chose "yes". The transaction that appears on my online statement however is US$492.03, which is a conversion rate of 30.75! I'm LIVID.

[JimGant]

I'll probably also set up a Bangkok Bank / New York account link as a back-up channel. It appears that Bangkok Bank's ACH rate ( best of the three possible exchange rates ) might even do better than negate the new fee by giving a better exchange rate than you can get at any ATM.

What's the "Bangkok Bank's ACH rate?" The rate you get with ACH transfers via Bangkok Bank New York is the TT rate, same as with a wire transfer (and same too the .25% fee on the Thai side).

[JimGant]

"Would be curious to hear if others have had success with any of the ABA #s above, and if so, which from US institution your funds were transferred"

There were breakdowns earlier in the game with using BB NY as the intermediary for an ACH transfer to you BB account in Thailand. Most of this had to do with intermediaries for ACH transfers (like CashEdge), that somehow gummed up the works. Bank of America was prominent in the gumming up. Apparently, this has been fixed.....

Banks that handle their own ACH transfers apparently don't all operate the same. My bank (USAA), when I went to set up ACH transfer authority with BB NY, asked me if I had "full authority" over this Bangkok Bank account. I replied "no," so it was set up as "send only." No money was sent to check the account out -- it was just established, in one day.

Being curious, a few weeks later I set up another ACH transfer between USAA and another BB account I had. This time, when queried about "full authority over the BB account," I replied 'yes.' This time USAA *did* send out two small amounts of money to BB. A few days later, they emailed me something like: "Bankgok Bank has notified us they are a receive bank only for ACH transfers, blah blah." The end result was: an identical ACH transfer system was set up with this second BB account, namely, the Bangkok Bank accounts only show up as "receive" when I enter the 'send/receive' transfer page.

Anyway, at least with USAA, setting up ACH transfers is idiot proof. And, apparently, Bangkok Bank's response of 'we're receive only' precluded my ever having to verify what the amounts sent were, since USAA was satisfied that a "pull" operation of funds could not occur, and they then had no liability concerns on whether or not I owned the BB account.

Curious other banks still require money amounts sent verification......

[jfchandler]

Re BkkB, when I linked them online with Bank of America and E*Trade, I got the usual trial deposits to my BKK Bank account in both cases...

I've never tried to "pull" funds from my BKK Bank account into one of my U.s. accounts using online banking from the U.s. accounts. But, in theory, both accounts are set up in a manner that would allow that.

[Steve2UK]

I was of the understanding that The Nationwide Visa/Debit Card had a £300 Daily limit on withdrawals!!Has this changed now?Being as you drew out 20,000 Baht then i guess you have a higher limit!

The £300 limit applies to ATM withdrawals, if you go into the bank and present your N/W debit card you can in theory draw as much as you have in the account, I have in the past used this method and withdrawn £1100 without any problem, I wanted £1000 but the teller pointed out that for the extra £100 I could get a better exchange rate!

The only confusion was when I checked my N/W statement later I had been debited with less than the £1100! I think it was something to do with the fact I asked for £1100 and of course got baht so they must have entered baht on the computer and then N/W changed it to £ s at their exchange rate which was in my favour!

I withdrew 15000 baht yesterday at Ayudha and my statement shows a debit of £282.86 with no fees either end (rate of 53.02 higher than the BKB 51 ! )

100% correct about the limit GBP300 limit only applying to ATM withdrawals. A given Thai bank may have its own over-the-counter limit (e.g. 250,000 baht at SCB now I think) but otherwise if the card swipe shows the balance is available in your account, that's what you can withdraw.

Not so sure about the exchange rate varying according to the amount (e.g. GBP1,100 versus 1,000 in the case above) - I think the bank clerk may have been confusing this transaction with a standard forex purchase because you asked for a sterling amount rather than baht. AFAIK, it's N/W that effectively set the rate by the amount of sterling they'll debit from your account in order to pay for x amount of baht that the Thai bank gives you - but others seem to have different views on this.

As I've mentioned before, making simultaneous and identical baht amount ATM withdrawals with my two N/W FlexAccount cards (one Debit Visa and the other a Cirrus cashcard) has produced rates differing by about 10 satang - one time the Debit Visa rate was higher and the next time it was lower. A difference that small could be accounted for by the timing of the calculation and/or different Visa/Cirrus rates. For 10-20 satang per GBP, I'm not that bothered to know which.........

[wimpy]

As suspected, Ayudhya has begun charging the 150 baht fee on Visa debit cards.

[jfchandler]

OK, to all the ATM "experts" out there, think about some explanation for this result:

Yesterday (4:15 pm Thursday), I made literal back-to-back 1000 baht "test" withdrawals from the same UOB ATM within minutes of each other in Bangkok, with the following results:

U.S. MasterCard logo debit card. no 150 baht fee, $29.28 U.S. debit, exchange rate 34.15

only one debit amount to my bank account, being the $29.28

U.S. Visa logo debit card. no 150 baht fee. $29.51 U.S. debit, exchange rate 33.88

plus, a second debit to my U.S. account for $1.07 listed as "ATM transaction charge"

Now, I've used this same Visa debit card at BKK Bank, SCB, Kasikorn and GSB in the past right up to this week, and never had a $1.07 ATM charge show up for those transactions at other Thai banks. So I'm pretty clear it's not my home bank levying the charge. Rather, usually, this particular U.S. bank for ATM withdrawals using their Visa debit card here typically shows my withdrawal amount and then a separate 1% fee of the withdrawal amount (for example, 30 cents on a $30 withdrawal), which they refund to me at month's end as a perk of the account.

This was the first time I'd used any/that Visa logo debit card at a UOB ATM. In the prior week, I'd used the same U.S. MasterCard logo debit card a couple times at UOB ATMs and got no $1.07 ATM fee charged to my account, only the straight withdrawal amount.

So what the hel_l would be going on to create a situation where, in back to back identical UOB transactions, the Visa card withdrawal produces both a significantly lower exchange rate and adds an ATM fee, while the MasterCard withdrawal produces a higher exchange rate and no ATM fee????

[Drafi]

I will arrive in some days in BKK. Are there still ATMs at the airport or in the sukhumvit area where it is possible to withdraw money (EC/Maestro Card) without the charge? Any information would be helpful. I don't want to throw away 150 baht for nothing.

[Briggsy]

As suspected, Ayudhya has begun charging the 150 baht fee on Visa debit cards.

No offence, can anyone else confirm this with REAL experience at the ATM?

We had a false alarm on Bank of Ayudhaya 5 days ago on this thread.

Any independent confirmation out there?

[SurfRider]

"I'll probably also set up a Bangkok Bank / New York account link as a back-up channel. It appears that Bangkok Bank's ACH rate ( best of the three possible exchange rates ) might even do better than negate the new fee by giving a better exchange rate than you can get at any ATM. . . . What's the "Bangkok Bank's ACH rate?" The rate you get with ACH transfers via Bangkok Bank New York is the TT rate, same as with a wire transfer (and same too the .25% fee on the Thai side)."

I've just done some additional research and it appears that your comments are correct -- My previous comments were based on an earlier posted example of a BKK/NYC transfer, as well as data a friend had given me on a BKK/NYC transfer.

It's a bit complex, but here are the stats: ( From back in the Halcyon days of relatively high exchange rates and no usury fees )

I did an ATM withdrawal on March 4 using an E-Trade VISA Debit Card and the rate was 36.0965 Baht per US$

X-Rates for that day shows 36.09 -- "2009-03-04 Wednesday, March 4 -- 36.09 THB"

A friend did a transfer of US $995 via Bangkok Bank/NYC on March 9 and got a rate of 35.84

X-Rates for that day shows 36.16 -- "2009-03-09 Monday, March 9 -- 36.16 THB"

Using the Bangkok Bank/NYC rate vs. the X-Rate that the E-Trade Debit Card should have received on March 9:

$995 @ B35.84 = 35,660 Baht

$995 @ B36.16 = 35,979 Baht

This indicates that an additional 319 Baht would have resulted if the ET VISA Debit Card had been used at an ATM ( without the new usury fee )

It appears to be only about a .09% difference, but if this scenario holds true in the future, the ET card is clearly a slightly better deal than the Bangkok Bank/NYC transfer. ( That is, as long as one avoids usury fee ATMs and DCC rate ATMs )

Edited May 22, 2009 by SurfTrader

[SurfRider]

"So what the hel_l would be going on to create a situation where, in back to back identical UOB transactions, the Visa card withdrawal produces both a significantly lower exchange rate and adds an ATM fee, while the MasterCard withdrawal produces a higher exchange rate and no ATM fee????"

Hmmm . . . The only thing that comes to mind is that the Thai ATM strategy cartel has been taken over by the Thai Immigration Bureaucracy -- which probably means that we'll all be doing visa-runs soon just to do ATM withdrawals ( sorry, couldn't resist )

.

[thecatman]

Just out of interest, has anybody on here used one of the 3 HSBC ATM machines located at their branch down silom way to see if the 150Bt fee applies??

[cmjantje]

Aeon bank ATM... No fee!

Exchange rate? Visa or Mastercard?

Mastercard excellent rate: 46.+ yesterday (Euro)

[SurfRider]

To further elaborate on post #913 above, I forgot to mention the US $5 charge that Bangkok Bank/NYC would add to the transaction on the USA side, as well as the 200 Baht that they would add on the Thai side -- which amounts to an additional 379 Baht, or a total of 698 Baht to complete the transaction via Bangkok Bank/NYC

So, using an E-Trade VISA Debit Card as opposed to a Bangkok Bank/NYC transfer, you would save 698 Baht, or approx. US $19.46 on a transfer of US $995 -- which means you would lose almost 2% using Bangkok Bank ( Gee thanks, Bangkok Bank! )

[Priceless]

Aeon bank ATM... No fee!

Exchange rate? Visa or Mastercard?

Mastercard excellent rate: 46.+ yesterday (Euro)

Siam Commercial Bank (T/T) 47.07 or thereabouts, depending on exact time of day.

/ Priceless

[wimpy]

As suspected, Ayudhya has begun charging the 150 baht fee on Visa debit cards.

No offence, can anyone else confirm this with REAL experience at the ATM?

We had a false alarm on Bank of Ayudhaya 5 days ago on this thread.

Any independent confirmation out there?

Offense taken. I can confirm it because the ATM said it was going to charge 150 baht. You think I make this stuff up??

[KhunDave]

As suspected, Ayudhya has begun charging the 150 baht fee on Visa debit cards.

No offence, can anyone else confirm this with REAL experience at the ATM?

We had a false alarm on Bank of Ayudhaya 5 days ago on this thread.

Any independent confirmation out there?

Offense taken. I can confirm it because the ATM said it was going to charge 150 baht. You think I make this stuff up??

I can corroborate this. Bank of Ayudhaya in Chiang Mai today notified me of the 150 baht charge. I didn't proceed. UOB Bank was still fee-free, but the options are narrowing now.

[SurfRider]

If anyone finds any humor in this insane international money transfer game, here's an anecdote I received from a friend about a local Expat who was cut off from transferring funds from Bank of America to Bang-Bank/NYC:

"I learned last night why xxxxx is no larger able to send funds from

B of A to BKK Bank. When he learned that he could send a maximum of $10,000

without any reporting, he set up his automatic transfer for $9,500. He

later changed it to $9,900 and finally to $9,990. They cut him off, saying

he was violating the spirit of the anti-money laundry law"

Looks like TiT might be spreading beyond the borders of Siam

.

[bravingbangkok]

Never really use my card but did today and to my great surprise a 150baht fee was charged, I only use a HSBC premier Visa Debit card in Thailand because you do not get charged by HSBC or anyone ! Not anymore

The reason I laugh is because I find Thailand to be so petty and cheap that I even pity them. Thai economy doing well ? hahahaha you are having a laugh, this is just another tax charged to white people to make Thai people live better. To me this is a clear sign that the Thai gov needs all the money it can get, quite pathetic !

[bravingbangkok]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Also in collaboration with the 500baht airport tax department of AOT !

[bravingbangkok]

"So what the hel_l would be going on to create a situation where, in back to back identical UOB transactions, the Visa card withdrawal produces both a significantly lower exchange rate and adds an ATM fee, while the MasterCard withdrawal produces a higher exchange rate and no ATM fee????"

Hmmm . . . The only thing that comes to mind is that the Thai ATM strategy cartel has been taken over by the Thai Immigration Bureaucracy -- which probably means that we'll all be doing visa-runs soon just to do ATM withdrawals ( sorry, couldn't resist )

.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Also in collaboration with the 500baht airport tax department of AOT !

[jfchandler]

You were charged the 150 baht ATM fee for using your HSBC card at the HSBC ATMs near Silom Road, or, for using the HSBC card at some other Thai bank's ATM???

And, what country is the Premier card issued from???

Never really use my card but did today and to my great surprise a 150baht fee was charged, I only use a HSBC premier Visa Debit card in Thailand because you do not get charged by HSBC or anyone ! Not anymore

[bravingbangkok]

You were charged the 150 baht ATM fee for using your HSBC card at the HSBC ATMs near Silom Road, or, for using the HSBC card at some other Thai bank's ATM???

And, what country is the Premier card issued from???

Never really use my card but did today and to my great surprise a 150baht fee was charged, I only use a HSBC premier Visa Debit card in Thailand because you do not get charged by HSBC or anyone ! Not anymore

At a Bangkok bank ATM, card is issued in the UK.

[jgm005]

Bank of Ayudhaya > Soi Post Office > Pattaya 22/May at 19:00

I thought I'd do a test since I walked by the ATM. I asked for 1900bt from Savings. It took me

to another display screen where it said 1900bt and 0 FEE.

I did NOT go through with the process and canceled at that point. I doubled checked that it did say 0 fee

[wimpy]

Bank of Ayudhaya > Soi Post Office > Pattaya 22/May at 19:00

I thought I'd do a test since I walked by the ATM. I asked for 1900bt from Savings. It took me

to another display screen where it said 1900bt and 0 FEE.

I did NOT go through with the process and canceled at that point. I doubled checked that it did say 0 fee

From what savings? Your Ayudhya savings or a foreign savings account? What kind of card were you using?

[Briggsy]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Also in collaboration with the 500baht airport tax department of AOT !

Very off topic, sorry but airport tax is 700 Baht. Sorry to ruin your day.

And back on topic. Looks like there are conflicting reports on Bank of Ayudhaya once again. Can anyone report personal experience of whether they are charging the 150 Baht ATM fee or not.

Edited May 22, 2009 by Briggsy

[wimpy]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Also in collaboration with the 500baht airport tax department of AOT !

Very off topic, sorry but airport tax is 700 Baht. Sorry to ruin your day.

And back on topic. Looks like there are conflicting reports on Bank of Ayudhaya once again. Can anyone report personal experience of whether they are charging the 150 Baht ATM fee or not.

Why don't you go give it a try yourself?