Kbank And Ayudhya Won't Tfr Thb Out Of Country?

[chickencurry]

Have tried in vain to transfer some Thai baht out of our local bank accounts but both KBank and Ayudhya refuse to transfer THB internationally. They say you must first exchange it into another currency, then transfer it. I've never heard of this before. Can anyone confirm/advise please?

[Altos]

Have tried in vain to transfer some Thai baht out of our local bank accounts but both KBank and Ayudhya refuse to transfer THB internationally. They say you must first exchange it into another currency, then transfer it. I've never heard of this before. Can anyone confirm/advise please?

Why don't you just have then convert it to the currency of the destination country and then have them wire it ? I transfer a lot of funds around the world but unless I was transferring to a multi currency account at another bank or stockbroker I would have them convert it first. Otherwise they may not be able to get an equal conversion from the destination and would not know what to charge you.

I cannot imagine why you would want to do this anyways.

Cheers,

AltosTrader

[threelegcowboy]

What are you thinking?

You can only use Thai Baht in Thailand. There is no speakable amount of Thai Baht outside of Thailand. Other countrys use their own currency. You can only legally take B50K out of Thailand in hard physical currency.

What the bank is saying is if you want a transfer they will give you a rate into the receiving banks currency. The rate is what you should be concerned with. Sometimes they cant even guarantee the rate because the transaction happens at odd hours. Usually it only differs a fraction and not to worry.

If you lack confidence in this transaction pay the price of a test run. Do a small amount and see how it works. Then a second transaction (maybe a few days later) for the full amount.

Happy Trails

[chickencurry]

I cannot imagine why you would want to do this anyways.

Cheers,

AltosTrader

Thanks for replies. We had to transfer some money to Malaysia into a Malaysian Ringgits account. You cannot convert into Malaysian Ringgits outside of Malaysia so A DOUBLE WHAMMY. As we had to do the transfer fairly speedily, we had to convert the Baht into US Dollars here in Thailand (could have been another currency I guess but KBank suggested it) and send US Dollars to Malaysia and conversion into Ringgits done in Malaysia. Needless to say, we shall lose twice on exchange rates and the fee from KBank was pretty steep too.

Interested if anyone has got around this problem. It has been suggested to me that it may be a "local bank" issue but I'm really not sure. Any thoughts anyone?

[chickencurry]

What are you thinking?

You can only use Thai Baht in Thailand. There is no speakable amount of Thai Baht outside of Thailand. Other countrys use their own currency. You can only legally take B50K out of Thailand in hard physical currency.

I thought that was the case about THB 50K too but took a look at the Bank of Thailand website just now and you can legally take THB 500K to any neighbouring country. I can find nothing about not sending THB by bank transfer. The amount we were trying to send was only THB 18,000 not a king's ransom.

I'm still getting nowhere re the orig question - why I cannot do a bank transfer in THB. I just want to avoid changing currencies twice and avoiding this crazy fee that Kbank is charging for sending our foreign currency. Anyone please??

[12DrinkMore]

What are you thinking?

You can only use Thai Baht in Thailand. There is no speakable amount of Thai Baht outside of Thailand. Other countrys use their own currency. You can only legally take B50K out of Thailand in hard physical currency.

I thought that was the case about THB 50K too but took a look at the Bank of Thailand website just now and you can legally take THB 500K to any neighbouring country. I can find nothing about not sending THB by bank transfer. The amount we were trying to send was only THB 18,000 not a king's ransom.

I'm still getting nowhere re the orig question - why I cannot do a bank transfer in THB. I just want to avoid changing currencies twice and avoiding this crazy fee that Kbank is charging for sending our foreign currency. Anyone please??

They will not let you transfer THB out of the country electronically because it is not allowed by the powers that be, presumably either the Thai national bank or the Thai government.

At the time there was a wide diffferential between the onshore and offshore exchange rates I tried out my "get rich scheme". The idea was to import foreign currency and get the high THB rate and then export the THB and exchange for the foreign currency, and then keep cycling it around. Could have returned a couple of percent profit on each transaction pair. Not much, but repeated several times/day with several banks......

On the first test run the money came in and was exchanged automatically by the SCB. I then spent a couple of hours trying to persuade the bank to transfer the money abroad in THB. After a few backward jumps I was on the road to riches, until, at the final keystroke of issuing the transaction, up popped the error message on the bank manager's terminal "Cannot transfer THB to a foreign bank". She showed me the message.

The best rate of exchange for THB to MYR I have found is given by the "hidden" money exchangers around the border towns. These are generally the jewellers and Chinese owned pharmacies. Just ask around for the best rate. The Thai banks there won't even issue Ringgits, or rather will, but the exchange rate is rubbish and they have to order the currency, which would take a day. One bank manager even suggested the money exchangers, which do not advertise....

TIT

Edited September 9, 2009 by 12DrinkMore