UK pensions

[nong38]

1 hour ago, altcar bob said:

Metro bank max withdrawal here in Thailand is 15000 at ATM  but can call them to maximise the amount ,but they give you a two hour window to make withdrawal

The maximum I was referring to was the actual amount being transferred from the UK to Thailand. I never use ATMs here they burn my fingers!!

[nong38]

I have just done a comparison between Metrobank and Transferwise and this is the result after using their onscreen calculator.

The amount I used for a comparison was 20k. The rates as on screen today.

Metrobank flat fee of 25 GBP, Krungsri rate 43bts...........858925.

Transferwise total fees 110.89, rate 43.95306                   874187.

Things are not always what they seem, so Transferwise might be worth a look and setting up an account. Learn something new everyday.

[Kadilo]

15 minutes ago, nong38 said:

I have just done a comparison between Metrobank and Transferwise and this is the result after using their onscreen calculator.

The amount I used for a comparison was 20k. The rates as on screen today.

Metrobank flat fee of 25 GBP, Krungsri rate 43bts...........858925.

Transferwise total fees 110.89, rate 43.95306                   874187.

Things are not always what they seem, so Transferwise might be worth a look and setting up an account. Learn something new everyday.

https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/1010886-transferwise/?page=5&tab=comments#comment-12548133

 

there is a thread on TV on transferwise already if you're interested. 

[sandyf]

On 12/26/2017 at 4:39 PM, Jip99 said:

 

I transferred on Saturday evening via TransferWise and funds arrived Monday morning.

Hope you don't mind but as a matter of interest, what rate did Transferwise quote Saturday evening?

[sandyf]

15 hours ago, nong38 said:

I have just done a comparison between Metrobank and Transferwise and this is the result after using their onscreen calculator.

The amount I used for a comparison was 20k. The rates as on screen today.

Metrobank flat fee of 25 GBP, Krungsri rate 43bts...........858925.

Transferwise total fees 110.89, rate 43.95306                   874187.

Things are not always what they seem, so Transferwise might be worth a look and setting up an account. Learn something new everyday.

From the responses on the other thread it would appear that Transferwise does the conversion in the originating country which may make many feel a bit more comfortable. I always have GBP sent to Thailand as the interbank rate is always better than the HSBC rate, but the down side is you are subject to market fluctuation.

When I did the transfer last Friday I was caught in a dip, the market closed Friday night at about 43.75 and opened Monday morning at 43.62, by Mon afternoon it was back up around 43.85.

With the amount I transfer and the low fee of £4 I cannot see a great deal of benefit in changing and will just live with the fluctuation.

 

[altcar bob]

1 minute ago, sandyf said:

From the responses on the other thread it would appear that Transferwise does the conversion in the originating country which may make many feel a bit more comfortable. I always have GBP sent to Thailand as the interbank rate is always better than the HSBC rate, but the down side is you are subject to market fluctuation.

When I did the transfer last Friday I was caught in a dip, the market closed Friday night at about 43.75 and opened Monday morning at 43.62, by Mon afternoon it was back up around 43.85.

With the amount I transfer and the low fee of £4 I cannot see a great deal of benefit in changing and will just live with the fluctuation.

 

Best days to change money  Wednesday and Thursday...Fri afternoon ex rate goes down until mid afternoon Monday

[sandyf]

24 minutes ago, altcar bob said:

Best days to change money  Wednesday and Thursday...Fri afternoon ex rate goes down until mid afternoon Monday

Maybe on average but not entirely. The first week of the month it dropped every day during the week, making a transfer on Friday the 1st would have been the best time for over a week.

It is also a bit hit and miss, the previous time I initiated a transfer on a Friday it did not hit Thailand till the Wednesday. Timing is based on receipt of my pension, not worth the hassle of trying to anticipate what may or may not happen.

[billd766]

1 hour ago, sandyf said:

Maybe on average but not entirely. The first week of the month it dropped every day during the week, making a transfer on Friday the 1st would have been the best time for over a week.

It is also a bit hit and miss, the previous time I initiated a transfer on a Friday it did not hit Thailand till the Wednesday. Timing is based on receipt of my pension, not worth the hassle of trying to anticipate what may or may not happen.

 

My State pension is trnsferred on a Wednesday and this month it arrived this morning after 8 days in transit via Swift. Normally it leaves the UK on a Wednesday and I get it the following Tuesday unless there is a Thai bank/public holiday.

 

In the 13 payments this year it has been 1 day late 4 times, 2 days late once and 3 days late once.

 

In contrast my Forces pension sent on the 15th monthly has never been late and my company pension was 1 day late once.

[altcar bob]

Ex rate at the moment showing 43.8,  did use ATM  Nationwide,received that rate 43.8  150 baht usage  transferwise showing 43.5,  Hardly anything in it I guess

[billd766]

24 minutes ago, altcar bob said:

Ex rate at the moment showing 43.8,  did use ATM  Nationwide,received that rate 43.8  150 baht usage  transferwise showing 43.5,  Hardly anything in it I guess

 

I got 43.58 this morning from KBank.

 

Their TT rate was showing 43.34 at 09.00.

[sumrit]

6 hours ago, sandyf said:

From the responses on the other thread it would appear that Transferwise does the conversion in the originating country which may make many feel a bit more comfortable. I always have GBP sent to Thailand as the interbank rate is always better than the HSBC rate, but the down side is you are subject to market fluctuation.

When I did the transfer last Friday I was caught in a dip, the market closed Friday night at about 43.75 and opened Monday morning at 43.62, by Mon afternoon it was back up around 43.85.

With the amount I transfer and the low fee of £4 I cannot see a great deal of benefit in changing and will just live with the fluctuation.

 

Agree that exchange rates in Thailand banks are always better than the UK rates but which Thai bank do you transfer to that will give you the inter bank exchange rate??

The best I've got from various Thai banks is a couple of satang lower than their TT rate and the TT rate is always lower than the Interbank rate.

 

[Jip99]

22 hours ago, sandyf said:

Hope you don't mind but as a matter of interest, what rate did Transferwise quote Saturday evening?

 

 

43.749

 

I believe that TW do not remit funds from UK to Thailand - rather, they have ‘agents’ in Thailand and the Baht is therefore transferred locally. That is why the transaction can be initiated on a Saturday and invariably arrives earlier than indicated.

[sandyf]

1 hour ago, Jip99 said:

 

 

43.749

 

I believe that TW do not remit funds from UK to Thailand - rather, they have ‘agents’ in Thailand and the Baht is therefore transferred locally. That is why the transaction can be initiated on a Saturday and invariably arrives earlier than indicated.

Thanks for that. That looks like the market close rate on the Friday night.  This is the most accurate comparison that I have ever been able to make and it looks like if I had used Transferwise in this case I would have saved about £7.  For larger amounts , although the HSBC fee is fixed at £4, it would be a question of the difference between the increased difference on the rate and the rise in the Transferwise fee.

[sandyf]

17 hours ago, sumrit said:

Agree that exchange rates in Thailand banks are always better than the UK rates but which Thai bank do you transfer to that will give you the inter bank exchange rate??

The best I've got from various Thai banks is a couple of satang lower than their TT rate and the TT rate is always lower than the Interbank rate.

 

The Thai banks will convert the funds at the interbank rate and then apply their fee to credit to your account. Consequently the rate that you see coming into your account will always be less than the interbank rate and will vary between banks.

I never said I received interbank rate, I said I usually end up with about half a baht below the market rate. The main difference between the two is that the interbank rate is fixed for a period of time but the market rate is constantly changing as the GBP is a floating currency.

[sandyf]

19 hours ago, billd766 said:

 

I got 43.58 this morning from KBank.

 

Their TT rate was showing 43.34 at 09.00.

The dollar has been on the decline this week so we have seen a rise in the market rate this week. On Wed 27th at about 8 pm Thai time it touched 44, after a bit of profit taking it has now come back to 43.956 at this point in time.

We can only hope the slide in the dollar continues, little point relying on the UK government.

[Jip99]

5 hours ago, sandyf said:

Thanks for that. That looks like the market close rate on the Friday night.  This is the most accurate comparison that I have ever been able to make and it looks like if I had used Transferwise in this case I would have saved about £7.  For larger amounts , although the HSBC fee is fixed at £4, it would be a question of the difference between the increased difference on the rate and the rise in the Transferwise fee.

 

 

I transferred £20,000 recently and TW fees were around £135. They were still over 3,000 Baht better than the nearest alternative.

 

Just watch out for HSBC transfers and any additional correspondent Bank charges....I incurred  additional costs on transfers to Bangkok Bank and Kasikorn which is why I changed to TW. As a former employee (who doesn’t pay the £4 charge) that was a major decision.

 

i have just opened an account with Barclays because they do not charge for online transfers to Thailand.

[sumrit]

6 hours ago, sandyf said:

The Thai banks will convert the funds at the interbank rate and then apply their fee to credit to your account. Consequently the rate that you see coming into your account will always be less than the interbank rate and will vary between banks.

I never said I received interbank rate, I said I usually end up with about half a baht below the market rate. The main difference between the two is that the interbank rate is fixed for a period of time but the market rate is constantly changing as the GBP is a floating currency.

Does that still apply if withdrawing money from an ATM using your own bank card? And I'm not referring to the 220 baht ATM fee. that's added to the total amount withdrawn.

[sandyf]

1 hour ago, Jip99 said:

 

 

I transferred £20,000 recently and TW fees were around £135. They were still over 3,000 Baht better than the nearest alternative.

 

Just watch out for HSBC transfers and any additional correspondent Bank charges....I incurred  additional costs on transfers to Bangkok Bank and Kasikorn which is why I changed to TW. As a former employee (who doesn’t pay the £4 charge) that was a major decision.

 

i have just opened an account with Barclays because they do not charge for online transfers to Thailand.

In the time I have been transferring, about 10 years, there has never been any correspondent banks involved. In the years before I got my pension I only transferred occasionally as the fee was £17 at that time.  Went a long time without doing any transfers as my pension was paid over here, it wasn't until the referendum that I started transferring some pension every month.

 

Being able to open another bank account is not something that is available to many of us.

[sandyf]

41 minutes ago, sumrit said:

Does that still apply if withdrawing money from an ATM using your own bank card? And I'm not referring to the 220 baht ATM fee. that's added to the total amount withdrawn.

No, your bank will convert the transaction at their rate and in some cases then apply a non sterling transaction fee.  The exchange rate used should appear on your bank statement.

If you have online banking you can test it quite easily. Go to the BOT website and make a note of the rate. Make a withdrawal and then the following day you should see the transaction on your account and compare the rates.

[Jip99]

14 minutes ago, sandyf said:

In the time I have been transferring, about 10 years, there has never been any correspondent banks involved. In the years before I got my pension I only transferred occasionally as the fee was £17 at that time.  Went a long time without doing any transfers as my pension was paid over here, it wasn't until the referendum that I started transferring some pension every month.

 

Being able to open another bank account is not something that is available to many of us.

 

I accept that I am fortunate in having a UK address that I can use for opening a new bank account, and being in the UK over Xmas enabled me to supply ID and address verification paperwork.

 

 

I have posted elsewhere  about the changes affecting HSBC transfers. HSBC claim they are doing nothing differently but I recently picked up £35 and £54 correspondent Bank (Nat West I think) charges on transfers to Kasikorn (Baht account) and Bangkok Bank (FCD account).

 

I remain a big fan of my former employer/pension provider and changing from them (for international payments) was not a decision I took lightly. 

[evadgib]

My forces pensions once took six days to arrive as a result of bank holidays over a New Year some time ago. I binned 'paymaster' at that point and now wait until a suitable point in the middle of the week/month and tx via halifax to my Thai a/c.

 

In the last 6 months this has arrived in 1-2 days but on one occasion it only took an hour.

 

HTH & Happy New Year all 

[sumrit]

17 hours ago, sandyf said:

No, your bank will convert the transaction at their rate and in some cases then apply a non sterling transaction fee.  The exchange rate used should appear on your bank statement.

If you have online banking you can test it quite easily. Go to the BOT website and make a note of the rate. Make a withdrawal and then the following day you should see the transaction on your account and compare the rates.

Sorry, you misunderstood me. I'm not talking about a UK bank's charges and exchange rates, I'm asking about Thai bank charges and exchange rates. The UK card I sometime's use is are paid credit card. I load £ on the card from my UK bank and withdraw baht at a Thai ATM. There are no charges/fees from the card company and they say they use the inter bank rate, which was accurate (within a few satang) until recently. All I paid was the Thai ATM charge. However, on the last two occasions the rate has been lower than the interbank rate and close to the bank's TT rate (the last time was yesterday when the interbank rate at the time of withdrawal was 43.99 but I only got 43.42 which was the same as the Thai bank's TT rate). Would/could the Thai bank be applying their own rate?

[sandyf]

5 hours ago, sumrit said:

Sorry, you misunderstood me. I'm not talking about a UK bank's charges and exchange rates, I'm asking about Thai bank charges and exchange rates. The UK card I sometime's use is are paid credit card. I load £ on the card from my UK bank and withdraw baht at a Thai ATM. There are no charges/fees from the card company and they say they use the inter bank rate, which was accurate (within a few satang) until recently. All I paid was the Thai ATM charge. However, on the last two occasions the rate has been lower than the interbank rate and close to the bank's TT rate (the last time was yesterday when the interbank rate at the time of withdrawal was 43.99 but I only got 43.42 which was the same as the Thai bank's TT rate). Would/could the Thai bank be applying their own rate?

That being the case I do not understand what you are asking. As far as I am aware , but there may be exceptions, all foreign transactions carried out on a bank card are processed and converted by the bank that issued the card, so Thai bank charges and exchange rates would not apply other than the charge for using the ATM.

I am not familiar with prepaid cards but I would think it would work in the same way. The issuing bank would be responsible for maintaining the balance on the card so they should be responsible for the processing of any transactions.

[sandyf]

22 hours ago, Jip99 said:

 

I accept that I am fortunate in having a UK address that I can use for opening a new bank account, and being in the UK over Xmas enabled me to supply ID and address verification paperwork.

 

 

I have posted elsewhere  about the changes affecting HSBC transfers. HSBC claim they are doing nothing differently but I recently picked up £35 and £54 correspondent Bank (Nat West I think) charges on transfers to Kasikorn (Baht account) and Bangkok Bank (FCD account).

 

I remain a big fan of my former employer/pension provider and changing from them (for international payments) was not a decision I took lightly. 

It may be that some Thai banks want to use a correspondent bank.

I have only ever used TMB, getting on for 20 years now. Still got the old grey passbook when it was the Thai Military Bank and the address in it is Room 235 Apex Hotel. How times have changed.

I became an HSBC customer by default when they bought out the Midland, been ok as far as I am concerned.

[Jip99]

1 hour ago, sandyf said:

It may be that some Thai banks want to use a correspondent bank.

I have only ever used TMB, getting on for 20 years now. Still got the old grey passbook when it was the Thai Military Bank and the address in it is Room 235 Apex Hotel. How times have changed.

I became an HSBC customer by default when they bought out the Midland, been ok as far as I am concerned.

 

 

I didn’t have the time to delve further, but when I complained about the charges, a supervisor told me that HSBC/Bangkok bank “no longer had an account relationship”. That would certainly explain the sudden use of a correspondent bank.

 

It is now academic because, even without me paying the £4 charge (and IF correspondent bank charges did not apply) TransferWise is still a better option than HSBC for amounts up circa £1,200.

 

 

[nong38]

Well it would seem to me that transfers depend on the amount and where you are. For smaller amounts and that also depends on what you call small but amounts that JIP 99 suggest around 1200gbp then Transferwise seem a good option, especially as it can be done online from here or wherever as I understand it. If you want to make a much larger transfer say around 20000 gbp then a fixed fee for SWIFT transfer might suit you better, as I usually do a transfer once a year then a standard charge suits me, then its just down to the Bank and what their fee is. Metrobank when they started charged 17 pounds, they are now on the LSE and shareholders need supporting so the fee is now a generous 25 pounds1

[JAS21]

On 30/12/2017 at 5:37 PM, nong38 said:

Well it would seem to me that transfers depend on the amount and where you are. For smaller amounts and that also depends on what you call small but amounts that JIP 99 suggest around 1200gbp then Transferwise seem a good option, especially as it can be done online from here or wherever as I understand it. If you want to make a much larger transfer say around 20000 gbp then a fixed fee for SWIFT transfer might suit you better, as I usually do a transfer once a year then a standard charge suits me, then its just down to the Bank and what their fee is. Metrobank when they started charged 17 pounds, they are now on the LSE and shareholders need supporting so the fee is now a generous 25 pounds1

Actually I suggest that you look at TW for larger amounts as well ... as they give mid market rate you will no doubt find that overall you get a better deal ...

[nong38]

1 hour ago, JAS21 said:

Actually I suggest that you look at TW for larger amounts as well ... as they give mid market rate you will no doubt find that overall you get a better deal ...

Re my figures on page 243 would indicate that you may well be right, as I usually do just one transfer per year in the spring will go and have a look at what Transferwise set up looks like.

[evadgib]

Seen on BPiA FB:

 

One in 20 British expat pensioners are fiddling their state pensions by claiming inflation-linked rises to which they are not entitled, according to the government.

The British pensioners claim the annual pension increase and the £200 winter fuel allowance by telling the Department of Work and Pensions they live in the UK when they really live overseas.

By giving a friend or relative’s address in the UK as their home, expat pensioners can claim the same benefits as a pensioner who genuinely lives in Britain.

One expat pensioner who has lived for years in tropical Pattaya in Thailand was recently hauled before the courts after his scam was discovered when his mother died in Britain.

 

http://www.iexpats.com/cheating-expats-try-fiddle-pension-claims/

[bert bloggs]

23 hours ago, evadgib said:

Seen on BPiA FB:

 

One in 20 British expat pensioners are fiddling their state pensions by claiming inflation-linked rises to which they are not entitled, according to the government.

The British pensioners claim the annual pension increase and the £200 winter fuel allowance by telling the Department of Work and Pensions they live in the UK when they really live overseas.

By giving a friend or relative’s address in the UK as their home, expat pensioners can claim the same benefits as a pensioner who genuinely lives in Britain.

One expat pensioner who has lived for years in tropical Pattaya in Thailand was recently hauled before the courts after his scam was discovered when his mother died in Britain.

 

http://www.iexpats.com/cheating-expats-try-fiddle-pension-claims/

Moral of story ,dont use an address where someone is liable to die .