Thai banks

[Gammy]

Can anyone assist please.....

What's a cheap and efficient way to transfer a regular monthly amount of money from my UK bank to a Thai bank?

Any information regarding this subject would be appreciated.

Many thanks

[en184]

Internet banking or a standing order.

I know dexia bank in luxemboug offers online transfers worldwide including to thailand.  Other banks must too.

[JonnieB]

i use wire transfers from my usa bank (citibank) to my savings account at Bangkok Bank.  i authorized it (signed the paperwork with Citi before i left) and now do one wire transfer a month via citi's banking website, while i live in pattaya.

the fee is just $20 per wire transfer regardless of the amount transferred.  takes about 2-3 days to show up in my BB account.  i am sure citiank, uk has the same service and most other major uk/euro banks.

[Gammy]

Thanks.

Any recommendations for reliable banks in BKK that don't charge to much for international transfers?

[JonnieB]

i think i would be safe in saying that the majority of farangs that use a "thai" bank use Bangkok Bank, with Thai Farmers (Kasikorn) coming in second.  As you are coming from the uk and i assume a uk citizen, you may want to check-out standard-chartered nakathorn bank.  a couple of years ago, your standard chartered bank bought a thai bank called Nakathorn bank and so in los we now have SCN bank.  i think usually the accounts are segregated by country, at least i know my usa citi accounts not linked-up in such a way that the tellers here at citi on sathorn can answer any questions about the accounts or do anything with them but they can put in a free call to citi usa anytime i have a question and transactions with citi's thai atms are free.

the transfer fees are imposed on you "home" bank, i.e., the one doing the transfer to your thai bank.  as far as i am aware, there is no fee imposed by the thai bank for receiving and processing a transfer (if it is being deposited to you account).  there is just the sterling/baht exchange rate to consider.  Bangkok Bank gives whatever their posted foreign currency exchange rate is on the day they receive the wire. no other fee as far as i can determine.

[Rinrada]

Standard Transfer-Min Fee £15. for amounts up to £6,000.

takes 5 days.

Urgent Transfer - Min Fee  £30.same up to £6K but the dosh is in the bank next day..

Complete transfer form,take it into the branch or post plus cheque and transfer fee and.......thats it

Bangkok bank,United Kingdom

London Branch

The London branch provides full commercial banking services to local and overseas customers.

There are many products tailored to meet your needs including:

Trade Finance

Corporate Lending

Remittance

Foreign Exchange Services

Deposit Accounts

Please contact the branch directly for more details:

London Branch

Mr. Parnsak Pruksakit, Branch Manager

Bangkok Bank PCL London Branch

61 St. Mary Axe, London

EC3A 8 BY, United Kingdom

Phone: (44-207) 929-4422, 626-0397

Fax: (44-207) 283-3988

E-mail: [email protected]  

http://www.bangkokbank.com/Bangkok....+UK.htm

  :cool:

[Gammy]

Many thanks all. Very helpful.

The cheapest transfer I've found is £14 up to 5 days, or £20 next day, max £10000.

I tried citibank in London but they require a minimum £30000 annual income (I don't even come close to that).

I thought of bankers draft, registered, posted by my daughter every month but that seems a bit risky.

I didn't realise the Bangkok Bank had a branch in London. Thanks for that. I'll give them a try.

[MaiChai]

Take cash out of an ATM in Thailand using a Cirrus/Maestro cash card, and then deposit it in your Thai bank (assuming you are in Thailand); with NatWest the charge is quite small. Visa/Master cards generally charge more for the ATM widthdrawl (Co-op, NW Visa/Mastercard).

As Rinrada posted on an earlier thread, get a Nationwide Flexiaccount (which has Internet Banking), which comes with a Visa Delta card. This account makes no charges for ATM withdrawls anywhere in the world. I can confirm as I followed Rinrada's advice, opened an account, and tried it out.

If you have a spouse in Thailand, give her a UK ATM card, so she can drawn cash without paying expensive transfers to a Thai bank. I use an old NW account that I have not used for years, got a new Cirrus/Maestro ATM card for it, and just top it up from time to time as the wife needs more money. As its  a Cirrus/Meastro card (NOT VISA/Mastercard), then theres no worries about it being stolen. Also it means I don't have to deposit large amounts to keep the costs of the transfers down, so its also better cash flow wise, and makes the wife manage the money more carefully

If I made say 12 transfers a years at 22 pounds per transfer, I have saved myself 264 pounds per year in bank charges by using ATM cards

[Gammy]

Thanks MaiChai.

I've explored this posibility but the only problem is, the exchange rate is applied by the UK bank which is a lot lower than the Thai rate of exchange. If £500 were whithdrawn over a month the loss is about £40.

Does anyone know if a Thai bank will accept a UK bankers draft?

[Rinrada]

Flex card ATM gives you the interbank exchange rate and not the UKs ripoff banks "make up the first figure Exchange rate you can think of " and apply.

When the local Thai rate was 68/£ thats what you get Not some poxy 66.6124 or whatever.

Also there is No service charges or facility rate. I have tried them all-R.Bof Scot,Citi,B of Sc,Halifax,Barclays (the worse)and others.Figure their rip-offs at approx 3.5 to 7% so on 20,000 Bt/£300  ATM withdrawal say @ £12-£15.a throw....

Why give it to them?

 

[en184]

Dexia Bank, Luxembourg - transfer 8.50 Euros to thailand.  Transfers within the EU are cheaper.

www.dexia.lu

[Gammy]

Sorry Rinrada but I don't quite understand the Flex card.

Where can I get this ATM card or any other card that gives interbank exchange rates?

[sting01]

you can use SWIFT, also called electronic transfert, it take 3 business days.

About the fees, you must precise they must be shared, btw the bank who send and the bank who receive the money. As the fees are cheaper in LOS, you will save some money on that, mostly it's about how much you move, but about 10 euros is what I pay.

Sting

[MaiChai]

I had a look on the Nationwide site, and can't see the rate that you get on the Flexiaccount when using ATMs abroad. I can tell you the rate that was used at the SCB on 15th Sep was 65.274. Looking at the Bangkok Bank exchange rates for this day, their buying rate was 64.21 and their selling rate was 65.94. The Nationwide rate is about the mid price between these two, and they don't charge for doing the transfer nor do they make any other charges/leavy interest.

Well done Rinrada! An excellent recommendation.

http://www.bbl.co.th/Bangkok+Bank/Web+Serv...es/FX+Rates.htm

Update: SCB website does not have historical forex prices.

[Gammy]

Has anyone had any dealings with the BKK branch of HSBC?

Appreciate any information.

[ThaiAdventure]

Has anyone had any dealings with the BKK branch of HSBC?

Appreciate any information.

Yes. I have looked. They only want large corperate accounts.

If you want a personal account you have to maintain THB 500,000 (yes 500K ) at all times in your account.

If you want a business account this soars to THB 3M.

[bandy]

Regarding the queries on exchange rates - my recent experiences in LOS led me to see that the best rate and quickest cleared funds was actually Western Union.

Nowhere in Hua Hin ("cannot change coz  Iraq") would change my UAE dirhams and the Bangkok Banks were offering 8.50.  Western Union rate was 10.5 with handling fee of around 800 baht (depends on country you are sending from and also the amount).  Funds clear in 25 minutes and WU is everywhere.  I think it is possible to send to yourself ie if you are sending in advance of going on holiday.  This particular scenario however may work best for less widely accepted currencies and not for mainstream like euros, dollar, pound etc.

Uptodate exchange rates can be seen on xe.com

[singa-traz]

the transfer fees are imposed on you "home" bank, i.e., the one doing the transfer to your thai bank.  as far as i am aware, there is no fee imposed by the thai bank for receiving and processing a transfer (if it is being deposited to you account).  there is just the sterling/baht exchange rate to consider.  Bangkok Bank gives whatever their posted foreign currency exchange rate is on the day they receive the wire. no other fee as far as i can determine.

The Bank that will receive the fund will charge you an agent fee, and this fee can be charged on your account in your home country, or the Bank in Thailand.

... at least on my last transfer with BBL.

[Expat2B]

Has anyone had any dealings with the BKK branch of HSBC?

Appreciate any information.

Yes. I have looked. They only want large corperate accounts.

If you want a personal account you have to maintain THB 500,000 (yes 500K ) at all times in your account.

If you want a business account this soars to THB 3M.

I enquired with HSBC in the UK about the requirements for opening an account at their one branch in thailand (Silom Rd, BKK).  You do not need a minimum of 500K deposit this is the minimum to avoid bank charges (of approx 1k per month, to include ATM card).

They offer 2 different types of account, resident and non resident but you need a work permit to obtain the resident account.  All the paperwork can be completed in the UK.

I wanted to open an account with them since I am a HSBC Premier customer in the Uk and thought that I could get the same benefits there (one of the benefits is supposed to be currency transfers free of charge over the net).  However this seems to be far from straightforward, and the fees they are quoting for wire transfers make credit card ATM withdrawals look fairly attractive.

I will try and speak to the BKK Premier team when I am in BKK next week and see if I can get any more sense from them

[ThaiAdventure]

Has anyone had any dealings with the BKK branch of HSBC?

Appreciate any information.

Yes. I have looked. They only want large corperate accounts.

If you want a personal account you have to maintain THB 500,000 (yes 500K ) at all times in your account.

If you want a business account this soars to THB 3M.

I enquired with HSBC in the UK about the requirements for opening an account at their one branch in thailand (Silom Rd, BKK).  You do not need a minimum of 500K deposit this is the minimum to avoid bank charges (of approx 1k per month, to include ATM card).

They offer 2 different types of account, resident and non resident but you need a work permit to obtain the resident account.  All the paperwork can be completed in the UK.

I wanted to open an account with them since I am a HSBC Premier customer in the Uk and thought that I could get the same benefits there (one of the benefits is supposed to be currency transfers free of charge over the net).  However this seems to be far from straightforward, and the fees they are quoting for wire transfers make credit card ATM withdrawals look fairly attractive.

I will try and speak to the BKK Premier team when I am in BKK next week and see if I can get any more sense from them

I'm an HSBC account holder in the UKand first looked at the Thailand branch because I thought it would make life simpler....it didn't. I was told that if I wanted to draw funds from ny UK account (not through ATM but over the counter) I would have to do a wire transfer (which the UK charge ?17 to process) and the Thai branch would charge me THB 1500- It would take 4-5 days. This is actually no different than transferring from the UK HSBC to any other Thai bank. The only benefit is that the HSBC ATM card works in Thai (Cirrus) ATM's. So I opened an account with Siam Commercial who have internet business banking (HSBC only have Hexagon dial-in and pay loads).

My advice (take it or leave it) to people who want to use HSBC is open an account in your home country so you can use the ATM's then when you visit take loads of travellers cheques and pay then into a Thai bank that has internet banking.

[ThaiAdventure]

Expat2B Wrote:

I enquired with HSBC in the UK about the requirements for opening an account at their one branch in thailand (Silom Rd, BKK).  You do not need a minimum of 500K deposit this is the minimum to avoid bank charges (of approx 1k per month, to include ATM card).

They offer 2 different types of account, resident and non resident but you need a work permit to obtain the resident account.  All the paperwork can be completed in the UK.

I wanted to open an account with them since I am a HSBC Premier customer in the Uk and thought that I could get the same benefits there (one of the benefits is supposed to be currency transfers free of charge over the net).  However this seems to be far from straightforward, and the fees they are quoting for wire transfers make credit card ATM withdrawals look fairly attractive.

---------------------------------------------------

Sorry Expat 2B. I didn't really address your posting.

What (I think) they are describing to you is a foriegn currency account judging by the status definition (i.e funds are held in  in sterling, US dollars etc). I too looked at this but I needed a current account with which I could issue cheques. The HSBC brochure says "cheques can be drawn in over 80 currencies" but, as I found out, not Thai baht.

Minimum deposit......mmmmm:

The UK people are half right. If you do not maintain a minimum deposit of 500K then you incur monthly bank charges BUT to open the account you have to deposit a minimum of 500K.

Internet:

As for transfers over the net, the only electronic transfers that the Thai HSBC can do at present is through Hexagon-the new World Pay system hasn't reached HSBC in Thailand yet nor has internet banking but they told me they would be upgrading next year (but seemed unclear on what they were upgrading to).

N.B nothing is free especially with the HSBC

Fee's:

If you go for a Thai bank It will cost the same as HSBC to send money to Thailand but it is cheaper to send it back. In addition, there are no minimum deposit penalties (if like me you object to paying for them to use your money) and the bank charges on transactions are cheaper. (THB 5 for a cheque with Siam commercial as opposed to HSBC's THB 300 depending on which account you have).

Work Permits. This old chestnut:

Required by the Thai HSBC? YES (it's in their procedures), UNLESS you have a letter from the foreign HSBC bank saying you are a good boy and you have lots of money. Work permits have nothing to do with resident and non-resident accounts only that you are resident or nonresident-you do not (technically) have to have a work permit to be resident, only to work. But farang who are resident usually have one (retired people may not for example).

[Expat2B]

This contradicts the information I have had from HSBC International here in the UK.  I am a HSBC customer of very good standing and a Premier Banking Customer (min income requirement £70k +) here in the Uk which might or might not make a difference.  This information was as follows:-

Minimum Opening deposit is 100k Baht

Minimum Constant Balance to avoid fees 500k Baht

Banking Fees are monthly fixed amounts and not transaction dependent with an additional monthly fee for ATM usage facility.  Not cheap and arguably wrong in principle, but at no more than £15 per month, I am not going to sweat that too much.

HSBC International clearly stated this was a current account (even for non residents - i.e. no work permit) and had a cheque book facility which could be used to issue Baht denominated cheques.

Non Res Account can have funds remitted from Thailand or Overseas and full balance remitted back offshore at any time (res account has some restrictions on remitting funds overseas).

I know Net transfers (withing HSBC) are not currently working for Thailand, this creates an anomaly withing the stated Premier banking benefits of free remittance of fund overseas to offshore Premier Accounts.

My Issue with exchange had nothing to do with the fee charged for the transfer itself, actually the rates offered for the SWIFT transfer itself were reasonable, but they were looking to impose a 3% exchange fee fee for even quite large transfers, this seemed to compare badly to using a UK credit card to make payments (HSBC Premier Mastercard Fee 1.75%).

In principle I am happy to move up to 10M Baht into a Thai account, however the poor rate of interest payable (max appears to be 0.75%) makes it unlikely I will do so in practice.

I am planning to go and visit the Premier Team in Silom when I am back in BKK next month and try and bottom out some of these discrepancies before making up my mind, but there is some comfort for me in using HSBC rather than an unknown (to me) local bank.

It also seems to be potentially problematic to make large cash/travellers cheque payments into a Thai account unless you can be sure you will be able to remit this cash back overseas if necessary.  At least if the money has been wired into a Thai account there is a clear audit trail showing this money arrived from overseas.

[ThaiAdventure]

Well if you have got the 10M then 500K is nothing to worry about. On the up side, they do operate sweeper accounts so you can offset the interest on the current account by sweeping into a deposit account. But you still have to keep 500K to avoid the charges.

Some of the other Thai banks operate a similar facility but you maintain 0.0 in the current account and cash is transferred from the deposit account only when a cheque is presented-to pay the cheque. This means your cash works better for you.

The people in the HSBC are very friendly and have a good level of English if your Thai is a bit shakey. I'm sure thay will be able to answer all your questions. I would suggest that you shop around though. If you have 10M you are in a very strong bargaining position with the Thai banks. They will bend over backwards to get you to back with them.

Be sure to get the International Banking pack from the HSBC. It explains a lot of the systems (but does not detail the many hidden charges).

[Davidcharles]

Has anyone had any dealings with the BKK branch of HSBC?

I was short of cash earlier this year whilst in BKK and went to HSBC to ask them to get some cash out of my HSBC UK Account which they did very efficiently. Incidentally, they are not actually part of HSBC just associated.....

I have a Nationwide Card that can be used Worldwide without any charges, and I am tempted to go to LOS with it alone, and not to bother with Sterling Travellers Cheques. But I am afraid to do that as I know only too well, that sometimes these bloody cards refuse to deliver......