Sending Thai Baht To Us

[gerg57]

Hello,

I have looked in other threads and I could not find a good answer to my question. I am currently in the US and am having my friend sell something of mine in ChiangMai. They will have around 200,000 baht to send to me here. How would I get the best exchange rate to have it wired to my bank here. Should they change it to US dollars first in Thailand and then wire it or not. I know the exchange rates seem to be bad when it gets here in Thai baht. Should they just tell the Bangkok Bank to change it before sending it. Any help would be appreciated.

Thank You,

[ianguygil]

Your friend should go to to a Bangkok Bank branch and tell them he wants to transfer the funds to the US. He should specify your account in the US which is a USD account. You will get the best (published) rate for the FX. The transfer will be done via SWIFT and their Correspondent network in the US. If your friend has iBanking he can transfer using that service but he would have to register for this service first.

This is a very straight forward process. You will not get a poor rate as you are sending USD to the US, the THB conversion is done here in Bangkok. They pay through their branch in New York.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

[12DrinkMore]

The Thai banks won't give you the option of sending THB out of Thailand (unless, of course, somebody has found a way, TIT). The best rate is to exchange in Thailand anyway, foreign banks don't really want to handle THB.

However, I wonder if there will be an issue sending that amount of cash out of Thailand? The bank might want documentation where the original funds came from. Might be interesting if you can post how it all went here.

[nakachalet]

12drinkmore

last wk, just wired 500k baht to an u.s. acct.... procedures at bangkok bk was to make declaration on printed currency control forms of sort, stating the source.... and the purpose at destination.... took about 3 min

since it was not my first time there, the counter girl just waved at the lady in a glass walled office to come over, she took me back to her little office, pulled out her file cabinet and asked for my passport and proceeded to help me tackled the form.

within 24 hrs, new york replied with acknowledgement. but i still disliked having to pay the 1000+ baht fees.... lol

yes, the rate was 33.50--two wks ago.

[ianguygil]

Just to be clear with everybody (and I know people do not want to know to much about banking), there are actually no "real" THB accounts in the US for normal people. A bank or trading house may offer such an account, but the actual funds are held with a Thai financial institution via a Correspondent relationship. And as the THB is not a major currency most Western banks will not hold too much of it for their own account, so they will just maintain enough liquidity to cover their obligations and those of their customers.

If you send the cash to the US you either need to identify an account (which is normally a USD account) or you need to do the whole PUPID thing I have covered before (Pay Upon Proper ID). Either way they will issue the funds in USD.

In some cases with some major currencies (EUR, JPY) you can have accounts in the US in foreign currencies with normal banks. That is a pretty new thing in the US, although many other countries have had this for a long time (HK, Singapore, Japan) to allow people to hedge/diversify outside their own home currencies. But I am pretty sure this is not the case for THB except for some real specialist trading houses. And all real THB funds are actually held in Thailand via the Correspondent. The largest of which in Thailand is Bangkok Bank.

I hope this explains without getting too technical. So you actually cannot (in most cases for normal people) send THB to the US. If you have a large amount you can arrange an FX deal which will normally give you a better rate than the retail street rate, but this is again for just large sums.

If you send a large amount of funds out of Thailand you do need to explain where the funds come from (e.g. I work here) and why you are sending them out of the country. For most expats employed legally, an explanation that it is for "living expenses" is true and accepted. All countries want to understand the source of funds, and the destination of funds, to try to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, and I am sure all on this board fully understand the need to stop these things.

Good luck. I hope this helps.

Edited November 23, 2009 by ianguygil