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Money Transfers


case69

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Hello, the wife and i are in England and as she,s working she sends money to her family via western union which is ok although to me its expensive as they screw you with the exchange rate aswell as take a percentage fee, so my question is are there any cheaper alternatives that people use or are we stuck with western union regards keith.

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Keith I send money from my UK bank to my Thai bank on a regular basis. The flat rate is £17 for a swift transfer so I always send over a fair amount at a time. For small amounts the charge would equate to quite a high percentage.

Bangkok Bank does now have a facility to transfer via their London branch if you in-laws have a Bangkok Bank account, but personally I think their charges worked out even higher.

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The Swift transfer rate for my bank is now £25 so looking to change my account to a bank that charges less.

I transfer large amounts at one go for holidays and supporting my GF, then do online transfers to my GF from my SCB account, cost me 5Baht each transfer or draw money on the SCB account whilst in Thailand with my ATM Card for free.

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I have used the swift method once for a condo purchase and that was 20 pound with nationwide, the Thai bank didnt seem to know what a swift transfer was at first so at the time it seemed a pain but now its been suggested i will give it another go if it works out cheaper than western union. Thanks for the quick replies.

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I have used the swift method once for a condo purchase and that was 20 pound with nationwide, the Thai bank didnt seem to know what a swift transfer was at first so at the time it seemed a pain but now its been suggested i will give it another go if it works out cheaper than western union. Thanks for the quick replies.

It is now £25 with Nationwide, used to be fill out the form and post it but now can be done online, in my SCB account by beginning of trading the next day.

Edited by Basil B
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i sent 200 pounds to a uk bank a few weeks ago. so i changed baht to gb pounds at a scb branch. the rate was less than 1 over the days sell rate so i got 47.13 and the fee was 550 baht

the money arrived at the uk bank acct destination the next day and as it was a nationwide acct there was no fee

well pleased

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  • 4 weeks later...

Sorry to take so long to reply and thanks for the info, in the end i used paypal by sending to my mates account and he walked to atm near his bar and sent the monies on, anyone else done this as im sure it was cheaper than western union.

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Sorry to take so long to reply and thanks for the info, in the end i used paypal by sending to my mates account and he walked to atm near his bar and sent the monies on, anyone else done this as im sure it was cheaper than western union.

Paypal is expensive too.

Cheapest would probably be to open your own account in Thailand, for example at Kasikorn, transfer a fair amount by SWIFT at a time, and when your wife wants to send something, you just do a transfer from the Kasikorn account.

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How about just getting an ATM card for the Mrs family for "your" bank. Open a checking account, keep it separate from your main funds of course, and give the Thai family the debit card. You deposit money in the UK, next day family in Thailand goes to ATM and gets money. Keep the transactions for the ATM to a minimum to keep ATM fees low?

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Did my first on-line transfer yesterday Halifax - Bangkok bank £9.50

Great system - and can save another GBP 2.00 with the discount code :rolleyes:

It seems not everyone agrees with you!

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews179697.html

I have just read the information on the Halifax site about sending money overseas as on the surface a flat fee of 9.50 GBP ( 7.50 with promotion ) looks favourable. But then I read that they exchange your pound notes into euro before sending them to your bank in Thailand! Does this mean that your Thai bank receives euro and not the GBP you originally sent or is it transferred into baht?

Could you tell us if the amount that actually leaves your Halifax acc. in the UK is the same as that amount exchanged for baht using the TT rate less the 9.50 GBP?

This is not a trick question nor am I trying to catch you out, I am just looking for the cheapest way of transferring funds to my Thai bank.

BTW. My Thai bank, Bangkok bank charges something like 0.25% with a max. of 500 baht when it receives money from a foreign acc. I don't know if other Thai banks do the same but it should be factored in when relating to charges for transferring funds.

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