Overdrawn: Bungling burglar caught cracking into bank in Phuket

[mccw]

Hello.

My wife would like to move 1million bht to England. From Thai bankok bank to Lloyds bank in UK; both accounts are in her own name/ same name.

Is there likely to be any problem or paper work, tax, restriction or anything else?

If it matters? the Source of the money and reason for transfer ie what it will be used for can all be proved.

Thanks

[mccw]

^also ; ofcourse it would be best to transfer in bht and have the exchange done in uk; any problem with this?

[chiang mai]

It's a bad idea to exchange THB for GBP in the UK, the UK banks really don't want to hold THB plus they do love their spreads hence, you will lose money - best to make the exchange here. Anyone who doesn't believe this should look at the UK banks exchange rates, be sure to look at the rate for buying Pounds which I would guess today sits somewhere around THB56.

[gamini]

I can not see any problem it is only a very small amount. About GBP 20,000 Your wife (if she is Thai) as a tourist can go to any bank and say she wants GBP. You can get cash if you give the bank enough notice otherwise ask them to transfer the amount to a bank in the UK Or buy GBP travellers cheques. You as a foreigner can only take out money if you can prove you brought it in,.

[mccw]

Last time I looked it was more like buy sell 42-46; which is why people normally send £ to Thai ; but I did wonder that they maybe not so keen to buy. This because of the dual Market result of Thai government policy as mentioned in the pinned thread.

We'll check their rates and talk to both banks etc. It's not for a couple weeks till this will be done; I was really interested to hear if anyone had experience of doing this transfer in the mean time.

[chiang mai]

If she transfers electronically THB to the UK she'll need a THB account to receive the money, until such time as she wants to make the exchange and setting up that account will cost money - alternatively, she might transfer the funds and request .they are converted upon receipt.

You say the last time you looked the buy/sell was 42/46 and that really surprises me since my recollections of UK spreads is that they are much much greater so you will be well served to verify those numbers. Also make sure there is no commission charge which is often substituted to make the exchange rate appear attractive whilst still maintaining the effective spread. One way or the other the UK banks will charge you more money than is fair so the trick will be to figure out how they are going to do that.

If I was in your wife's shoes I would take my THB to Bangkok Bank here in Thailand and start buying cashiers cheques, denominated in GBP and drawn on Bangkok Bank London, if she buys them (at major branches) in amounts of less than USD 20k equivalent there will be no questions asked and the exchange rate used is the same as the TT rate hence it's very good. If she then carries those cheques to London and deposits them into her UK account they will clear within three days.OK, technically your wife should have an invoice against which to buy the GBP but if she withdraws the THB as cash and gives it to you to make the purchase, there will not be a problem.

Edited October 29, 2011 by chiang mai

[mccw]

Thanks very much for the replys

[mccw]

I just spoke to Lloyds. Their buy rate is 44 bht to the pound; so on 1.2mill = about 3000£ better than if I exchanged it in Thailand !

[chiang mai]

I just spoke to Lloyds. Their buy rate is 44 bht to the pound; so on 1.2mill = about 3000£ better than if I exchanged it in Thailand !

There's something very wrong with that, the Oanda exchange rates for sell/buy THB against GBP right now are 48.47 and 50.12, why on earth would Lloyds offer THB 44 for one Pound, that simply doesn't make any sense.

EDIT: I just checked the HSBC UK exchange rate and sure enough, it's 44.87, I'm amazed and don't really understand why, unless the gap between onshore and offshore rates has widened so much and I simply hadn't been keeping track of it.

Edited October 30, 2011 by chiang mai

[mccw]

I wouldn't want to break any laws of course; but potentially one could send it round in circles a few times and make that 3000£ over and over again. Anything wrong with this? I can't see anyone loosing money; as both banks are exchanging at their chosen rates and happy to do the business, no tax issues with the government, except perhaps on the profits. Seems too easy to be legit!

[chiang mai]

I wouldn't want to break any laws of course; but potentially one could send it round in circles a few times and make that 3000£ over and over again. Anything wrong with this? I can't see anyone loosing money; as both banks are exchanging at their chosen rates and happy to do the business, no tax issues with the government, except perhaps on the profits. Seems too easy to be legit!

It still seems to me that something must be wrong here or else there would be loads of players doing exactly what you describe. Perhaps this is a case of a couple of the UK banks "buying" Asian currencies? Dunno, really dunno.

[chiang mai]

One key factor: a person needs BOT approval to export more than THB 50k in currency hence the need for most people to make the exchange here in Thailand.

[Sophon]

I just spoke to Lloyds. Their buy rate is 44 bht to the pound; so on 1.2mill = about 3000£ better than if I exchanged it in Thailand !

There's something very wrong with that, the Oanda exchange rates for sell/buy THB against GBP right now are 48.47 and 50.12, why on earth would Lloyds offer THB 44 for one Pound, that simply doesn't make any sense.

EDIT: I just checked the HSBC UK exchange rate and sure enough, it's 44.87, I'm amazed and don't really understand why, unless the gap between onshore and offshore rates has widened so much and I simply hadn't been keeping track of it.

Unfortunately, most UK banks are not very specific about what the exchange rates showed on their websites are used for, but I'm confident that the rates quoted 44/44.87 are the bank's rates for selling THB - not buying. One bank that does spell it out a little better is Northern Bank:

So if transferring THB 1 mio on the 28th, Northern Bank would have exchanged at the rate of 50.9912 and given their customer GBP 19,611 (minus any charges). Comparing that to asking the Thai Bank to exchange the money to GBP before sending it via e.g. Bangkok Bank, then the rates used by Bangkok Bank on the 28th were:

So with a rate of 49.3125 Bangkok would have exchanged the THB 1 mio and sent GBP 20,279. So the customer would have been more than GBP 660 better off letting the Thai Bank do the exchange.

Sophon

Edited October 31, 2011 by Sophon