Random RCBO Trip...What Next?

[marinediscoking]

I do regular swift transfers from my Bank SCB (Siam Commercial Bank) to Abby National in London. Each time I am charged a Commission of 1,200 baht and a bank charge of 550 baht. These charges are applied for any amount that is sent via swift. I need to send specific amounts in pounds to arrive so I instruct them that I need all charges paid on my side so there are no deductions in the UK. SCB tells me I have to specify how many pounds i need sent not the baht equivalent so it is not any cheaper trying to send the equivalent of 50,000 baht.

Does anyone know a cheaper bank to wire from here in Thailand?

SCB does tell me they will drop the service charge of 550 baht but there will be a fee deducted from the UK bank if I choose this option.

[Gone]

WOW that's so cheap. 1,750 baht is like only $55.00

Don't think you will get it any cheaper then that mate. Western Union would charge 5 X's that.

[WilliaminBKK]

It irks me everytime I see these fees, surely the banks know you could simply open a savings account with an ATM and have someone in the UK withdrawl the pounds for a fraction of the cost.

Would two Paypal accounts be cheaper ? SCB to Paypal-Paypal to Paypal-Paypal to Abby ? I know in the past Paypal was quirky about opening say a UK Paypal account abroad but I don't know if things have changed.

[englishinsiam]

Strictly speaking you can only have one Paypal acct so that isn't really an option. If Paypal discover you transferring money to yourself they will class that as money launderingand may freeze the funds while they investigate it.

Another option open to you is if you have friends in the UK that want Thai baht then they can transfer to your abbey from the UK and you transfer to their Thai acct.

Posted with Thaivisa App http://apps.thaivisa.com

[4evermaat]

.....

Would two Paypal accounts be cheaper ? SCB to Paypal-Paypal to Paypal-Paypal to Abby ? I know in the past Paypal was quirky about opening say a UK Paypal account abroad but I don't know if things have changed.

You could link thai debit card to thai paypal account. Then pay another paypal account in uk, including your own.

Strictly speaking you can only have one Paypal acct so that isn't really an option. If Paypal discover you transferring money to yourself they will class that as money launderingand may freeze the funds while they investigate it.

.............

You may have up to 2 paypal accounts in each country paypal operates in (personal and business). Different emails, banking details, etc are required for each.

Another option is to issue a separate debit card on the same SCB account, or open new acct (better) and send the debit card to uk. Do atm withdrawals there.

PS: how are you able to wire funds out of thailand with little hassle?

[Darrel]

By international standards 1750B for a SWIFT transfer including all charges at both ends is probably below average. Some banks would charge a lot more.

[rocketmanbkk]

Can I ask, when you transfer cash to the UK from Thai do you get asked where teh cash came from etc?

Is it easy to transfer from a Thai person to a Brit in UK (Natiowide BS)?

Let's say if you sold a house for 3 millionbt for instance and you wifes account had the cash in?

[Pib]

Doing a SWIFT transfer ain't cheap regardless of banks used, whether transferring from or to Thailand. And 1,750 baht for a SWIFT transfer is well within the ballpark for SWIFT fees charge by most banks.

To do it significantly cheaper a person will need to figure out a non-SWIFT method, but since you are transferring money "from" Thailand your options are probably going to be very limited due to Bank of Thailand rules/regulations which the Thai banks establish their rules/polices on....rules/regulatons/policies which does not make it easy to send money out of Thailand. Good luck.

[edwardandtubs]

1,200 is too much "commission". I believe the fixed price for a SWIFT transfer is something like £15 which is about 700 baht. Then your Thai bank should charge you about 500 baht. The total should be around 1200 baht. That's how it is with KBank anyway, as I recall.

Edited January 11, 2012 by edwardandtubs

[marinediscoking]

Strictly speaking you can only have one Paypal acct so that isn't really an option. If Paypal discover you transferring money to yourself they will class that as money launderingand may freeze the funds while they investigate it.

Another option open to you is if you have friends in the UK that want Thai baht then they can transfer to your abbey from the UK and you transfer to their Thai acct.

Posted with Thaivisa App http://apps.thaivisa.com

It is actually not my account that I am transfering to, so that is not an option for me. I do transfer USD from SCB to The USA and S. Korea sometimes and the fee's are about half of what it is to wire GBP for some reason. I was just wondering if there is another bank that is cheaper to do this?

[cardholder]

Doing a SWIFT transfer ain't cheap regardless of banks used, whether transferring from or to Thailand. And 1,750 baht for a SWIFT transfer is well within the ballpark for SWIFT fees charge by most banks.

To do it significantly cheaper a person will need to figure out a non-SWIFT method, but since you are transferring money "from" Thailand your options are probably going to be very limited due to Bank of Thailand rules/regulations which the Thai banks establish their rules/polices on....rules/regulatons/policies which does not make it easy to send money out of Thailand. Good luck.

just needs a bit of thinking outside the box.....

An expats 'co-operative' would work.

I transfer funds from UK to Thailand for friends (via my Thai bank) and we share the costs.

Not much difference (taking the OP scenario) to the OP transferring Baht to my Thai account and I transfer Sterling to his wife's account. That gives me Baht in Thailand and saves me transferring Sterling out of the UK.

just need a bit oftrust and agreed exchange rates

[marinediscoking]

Can I ask, when you transfer cash to the UK from Thai do you get asked where teh cash came from etc?

Is it easy to transfer from a Thai person to a Brit in UK (Natiowide BS)?

Let's say if you sold a house for 3 millionbt for instance and you wifes account had the cash in?

Yes they allways need an invoice for why the money is being transfered (i tell them it is for a business related service). I do have a small business in Thailand and must give them a copy of my work permit.

I really don't know the answer to your second question but after the Tacksin coup they were more stringent on needing reasons for the transfers. Apparently he wired a lot of money out.

Just a side note...one time I was doing the transfer and someone sitting at the desk next to me (a brit) was depositing 167,000 euros cash that he had brought over, the manager was checking each 500 euro note and asked what it was for....he answered "for a house". That was the only question asked.

Edited January 11, 2012 by marinediscoking

[Darrel]

Can I ask, when you transfer cash to the UK from Thai do you get asked where teh cash came from etc?

Is it easy to transfer from a Thai person to a Brit in UK (Natiowide BS)?

Let's say if you sold a house for 3 millionbt for instance and you wifes account had the cash in?

Whenever you make any sort of international tranfer above a small value you have to state a reason for it on the transfer form, but this is purely for the bank's records.

If you are transfering funds into Britain then any sum over 10,000 Euros is likely to attract the attention of the receiving bank, depending on whether the transaction is "unusual" or not. If they think it is "unusual", they will flag it for money-laundering checks which may be limited to asking you where the money came from, or asking for a bill of sale or legal document showing the amount, or indeed starting some sort of secret check of all your finances. If your bank reports you for suspected money-laundering they are forbidden to tell you that they have done so.

[Darrel]

Just a side note...one time I was doing the transfer and someone sitting at the desk next to me (a brit) was depositing 167,000 euros cash that he had brought over, the manager was checking each 500 euro note and asked what it was for....he answered "for a house". That was the only question asked.

It is a criminal offence to export more than 10,000EUR cash from any EU country without declaring it. In some EU countries it is also an offfence to make any sort of transaction with a value of more than a few thousand EUR, other than by cheque or bank transfer.

I doubt that any bank in Europe would allow someone to deposit 167,000EUR in cash, or if they did they would want masses of evidence as to where it came from. They never want to know what it's for though.

Here of course things are rather different, and no one will ever ask any serious questions. Which does make the EU anti money-laundering regs all rather pointless.

[rfukata]

By international standards 1750B for a SWIFT transfer including all charges at both ends is probably below average. Some banks would charge a lot more.

some good pricing quotes on transfers.

I only transferred money from the US bank to Siam Commercial (the opposite) but only payed $35.00USD for transaction up to $10,000.

I didn't get any service charges applied by SCB.

[jumbo]

I pay 300 thb to SCB for my swift transfers to the Netherlands in euro's

NL Bank charges me 7.00 euro

I don't understand why the OP has to pay much more than me?

[joker7]

You may want to check with either HSBC or Citibank in Thailand.

I use Citibank in Singapore and they permit me one free standing order every month to any account worldwide or 4 x free transfers / year.

This is Singapore though probably v different with them in Thailand.

[prakhonchai nick]

Doing a SWIFT transfer ain't cheap regardless of banks used, whether transferring from or to Thailand. And 1,750 baht for a SWIFT transfer is well within the ballpark for SWIFT fees charge by most banks.

To do it significantly cheaper a person will need to figure out a non-SWIFT method, but since you are transferring money "from" Thailand your options are probably going to be very limited due to Bank of Thailand rules/regulations which the Thai banks establish their rules/polices on....rules/regulatons/policies which does not make it easy to send money out of Thailand. Good luck.

just needs a bit of thinking outside the box.....

An expats 'co-operative' would work.

I transfer funds from UK to Thailand for friends (via my Thai bank) and we share the costs.

Not much difference (taking the OP scenario) to the OP transferring Baht to my Thai account and I transfer Sterling to his wife's account. That gives me Baht in Thailand and saves me transferring Sterling out of the UK.

just need a bit oftrust and agreed exchange rates

That's a great idea Cardholder. However, judging by the lack of response I imagine it's beyond most people.

[realfunster]

I pay 300 thb to SCB for my swift transfers to the Netherlands in euro's

NL Bank charges me 7.00 euro

I don't understand why the OP has to pay much more than me?

Similar here, I use BBL to transfer overseas regularly (can do via e-banking as well which is convenient), Thai charge is THB 300 and about GBP 7 (THB 350) upon receipt in the UK.

OP- THB 1,750 sounds well over the odds to me, although I note you are choosing to have all charges paid here in Thailand, this might be the cause ?

[peergin]

1,200 is too much "commission". I believe the fixed price for a SWIFT transfer is something like £15 which is about 700 baht. Then your Thai bank should charge you about 500 baht. The total should be around 1200 baht. That's how it is with KBank anyway, as I recall.

My branch of the Kasikorn Bank charges me B 1700 for every outward SWIFT transfer.

[Lancashirelad]

just needs a bit of thinking outside the box.....

An expats 'co-operative' would work.

I transfer funds from UK to Thailand for friends (via my Thai bank) and we share the costs.

Not much difference (taking the OP scenario) to the OP transferring Baht to my Thai account and I transfer Sterling to his wife's account. That gives me Baht in Thailand and saves me transferring Sterling out of the UK.

just need a bit oftrust and agreed exchange rates

That's a great idea Cardholder. However, judging by the lack of response I imagine it's beyond most people.

Indeed it is a great idea. Its very simple and quite possibly fee free.

Just needs the trust issue to be addressed.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Lancashirelad

[Darrel]

Similar here, I use BBL to transfer overseas regularly (can do via e-banking as well which is convenient), Thai charge is THB 300 and about GBP 7 (THB 350) upon receipt in the UK.

Is this really for a large SWIFT transfer and not just a small wired transfer? If so it seems unreasonably cheap. I wasnt aware that you could do large outward transfers on a whim via internet banking anyway.

Perhaps some of the price differences quoted are because the amounts involved are very different; I have only ever done SWIFT transfers for more than 1MB.

[marinediscoking]

For me it varies the amount that I transfer, some months its only £500 and sometimes £1,500

If it were large amounts I really would not be bothered by the fee.

[manarak]

For me it varies the amount that I transfer, some months its only £500 and sometimes £1,500

If it were large amounts I really would not be bothered by the fee.

Then why don't you setup an account in UK with a balance you refill every 6 or 12 months? You would save 15000 baht per year that way.

Swift is the cheapest method for transferring money internationally if the amounts are big.

For small amounts, only local accounts are viable in costs.

[ianguygil]

To the OP,

Ok, here we go. I am sorry for the delay in getting back on this but as I hope you all know now I do this in my spare time and as an individual.

I contacted our Global Payments people. This is a part of their reply:

"I understand from the forum that marinediscoking requests SCB to make a swift transfer with charge OUR instruction to pay his UK bank account. Basically, if his payment Order is made with Charge “OUR” Instruction, as a sender, he will need to pay all transfer charges (remitter bank + middle bank + and beneficiary bank) which are THB1,750 per item according to SCB’s fee structures (THB 1,200 for their own bank charge + THB 550 for their foreign bank charge)

In this case, Bangkok Bank fees are cheaper with total charges of THB 1,150 per item (THB 400 for our bank charge + THB 750 foreign bank charge) and the beneficiary will receive funds in the full amount.

In general for the payment with Charge OUR instruction, if THB 750 is not sufficient to cover the foreign bank charges, we will need to revert to the sender to collect an additional charge. However, normally for the payment in GBP, the fee we received from the sender (THB750) is sufficient to cover the foreign bank charge applied."

I am always happy to answer any other respectful questions, or please contact DAVEROC who has more time for this than I do. As I have made clear before those who have proven to be habitual whiners and cynics will be ignored, I honestly just do not even read those posts. Thanks,

Ian

[marinediscoking]

For me it varies the amount that I transfer, some months its only £500 and sometimes £1,500

If it were large amounts I really would not be bothered by the fee.

Then why don't you setup an account in UK with a balance you refill every 6 or 12 months? You would save 15000 baht per year that way.

Swift is the cheapest method for transferring money internationally if the amounts are big.

For small amounts, only local accounts are viable in costs.

I am not british, so that is not possible for me to do.