Maximum amount allowed in wire transfer to a Thai bank account.

[The Fat Controller]

5 hours ago, lkn said:

Thinking that you can actually negotiate the exchange rate with your local branch is what’s rubbish!

 

@lkn, if your could have been bothered to actually read my post, my wife was speaking to the main office in Bangkok, we had arranged prior to the transfer that the funds would not be converted until we had called and agreed the rate.

 

We have done the same with Krung Thai for 3 large transfers and although the rate was only marginally better, every little helps when you are transferring £100,000 

 

Anybody sending over more than US$ 50,000 should have a word with Head Office (not your branch) and see what they can do, 

Edited April 16, 2018 by The Fat Controller
Spelling

[lkn]

4 minutes ago, The Fat Controller said:

Anybody sending over more than US$ 50,000 should have a word with Head Office (not your branch) and see what they can do, 

This happens automatically. I have done more than a dozen large transfers with Krungthai.

 

As I wrote, yes, they may ask you to confirm the rate, but that is not a negotiation.

 

They used to publish rates up to a certain amount, I think their site used to say above $10,000 and you would get a “market rate” (there were 3-4 tiers below $10,000).

 

The first two times I had money coming in (in the 5-6 digits range), they did call me automatically, and told what rate they could give me, based on real time data (and I could have declined, but that would just leave my money in USD).

 

I have told them that they do *not* need to do this, just give me whatever is the market rate, and that is what they do now, and the rate I get is pretty close to the rate displayed by Google (the few times I actually checked).

[sky3]

On 4/16/2018 at 11:17 AM, blackcab said:

 

SCB it's 2 million to another bank, but that can be increased with Head Office approval. I have attached a screenshot of my mobile banking app.

 

Do check if there are any transfer fees. There may or may not be, and they may or may not be significant.

 

Don't forget you can withdraw the funds in cash at one bank for free, then walk next door to the next bank and deposit the cash for free. 

 

I have often done that for larger amounts of cash. It saves on transfer fees and there is no delay with the funds being credited to the account.

Thanks. Now the issue I faced today was that you can only do 50k per transfer on the app... to transfer 500k I had to make 10 transactions, so annoying

[Nemises]

You asking a wrong question. You question should be how much is allowed to take out of Thailand. You are most welcome to transfer as much money to Thailand but I am sure it would not be that easy to take it out.

Do you know for sure that it’s not easy to take large sums of money out of Thailand? Do you have a Thai Govt link which verifies?

[lkn]

8 hours ago, sky3 said:

Thanks. Now the issue I faced today was that you can only do 50k per transfer on the app... to transfer 500k I had to make 10 transactions, so annoying

I have Krungthai and Krungsri, both limit immediate transfers to 50,000 baht, but they do allow transfers as high as my daily limit to be scheduled as a (single) next day transfer.

 

I have written before that I suspect the 50,000 baht limit is imposed from above, as I read somewhere that for transfers above 50,000 baht, Bank of Thailand has to be notified (with details about sender and receiver), so I suspect that this notification is not automated.

 

[blackcab]

12 hours ago, lkn said:

I have written before that I suspect the 50,000 baht limit is imposed from above, as I read somewhere that for transfers above 50,000 baht, Bank of Thailand has to be notified (with details about sender and receiver), so I suspect that this notification is not automated.

 

Kind of. For anti money laundering office reporting purposes there is a list of transaction types, split between walk in customers and bank customers. Some types of transactions for walk-in customers have a 50k limit on them. If the limit is exceeded then ID will be required. An automated report of these types of transaction is generated and forwarded to the AMLO.

 

For an online transfer by a known customer who holds an account with the bank, there is no report generated for amounts less than 5 million baht, unless the transaction involves cash. In which case a cash transaction form would be generated for a transaction over 100,000 baht.

 

The reports are computer generated.

Edited April 18, 2018 by blackcab

[lkn]

5 hours ago, blackcab said:

For an online transfer by a known customer who holds an account with the bank, there is no report generated for amounts less than 5 million baht, unless the transaction involves cash. In which case a cash transaction form would be generated for a transaction over 100,000 baht.

But then where does the immediate limit (to other banks) come from?

 

To summarize, with my account in Krungthai I can do immediate transfers up to 5 million to other customers of Krungthai. But if I transfer to another bank, immediate transfers are limited to 50k, yet I can do 100 of these per day, or I can do a next day transfer of up to 5 million (to another bank).

 

To me it seems very much like if I want to transfer more than 50k the bank need details of the recipient (for the AMLO report), so when transferring to other customers with Krungthai, there is no problem, as Krungthai already has that info, but when sending to other banks, there is no protocol in place to automatically retrieve this information immediate, therefor there is a delay.

 

This is pure speculation, but since the 50k limit for immediate interbank transfers seems so prevalent, there must be some good reason for it.

 

Immediate and next day interbank transfers in Krungthai are btw both free, so it’s not even that the bank earns more in fees by limiting the max amount per single transfer.

[blackcab]

4 hours ago, lkn said:

But then where does the immediate limit (to other banks) come from?

 

It's a decision made by your bank. As I demonstrated earlier, with SCB the limit is 2 million baht.

 

4 hours ago, lkn said:

To me it seems very much like if I want to transfer more than 50k the bank need details of the recipient (for the AMLO report)

 

There is no AMLO report for this type of transaction if the amount is below 5 million baht.

 

4 hours ago, lkn said:

but when sending to other banks, there is no protocol in place to automatically retrieve this information immediate, therefor there is a delay.

 

There is no delay to customers of the bank. AMLO reporting us a background process and it is not done in real time. Recipients details known to the sending bank, otherwise how could they make the transfer?

 

4 hours ago, lkn said:

This is pure speculation, but since the 50k limit for immediate interbank transfers seems so prevalent, there must be some good reason for it.

 

There is no good reason. SCB has invested a lot into it's digital platform ahead of its planned branch closures. They recognise the need to push business online, and archaic rules like 50,000 per transaction but you can do multiple transactions have been adjusted to realistic levels.

 

KTB is a state owned enterprise. It's always going to be playing catch up.

[lkn]

9 minutes ago, blackcab said:

It's a decision made by your bank. As I demonstrated earlier, with SCB the limit is 2 million baht.

I have the limit with both Krungthai, Krungsri, @sky3 seemed to have it with Kasikorn, and my friend has it with Bangkok Bank, so it seems somewhat prevalent and not that arbitrary.

 

14 minutes ago, blackcab said:

There is no AMLO report for this type of transaction if the amount is below 5 million baht.

Has this been changed from 50,000 baht? Because I am quite sure I read about the 50,000 baht reporting requirement in the past. Perhaps you have a link to where the reporting requirements are stated?

 

18 minutes ago, blackcab said:

There is no delay to customers of the bank. AMLO reporting us a background process and it is not done in real time. Recipients details known to the sending bank, otherwise how could they make the transfer?

To send money, you only need bank name and account number. For the AMLO report I imagine you need to include national ID number / passport number and possibly last known address.

 

I could definitely imagine that banks would not make the latter information instantly available to other banks, but grant such information requests in batches or similar. Still semi-automated, but say, some employee has to OK a batch of such requests once per day, and that would explain why these transactions must be scheduled as “next day”.

 

22 minutes ago, blackcab said:

KTB is a state owned enterprise. It's always going to be playing catch up.

Well, I am 99.9% sure that the 50,000 baht limit for immediate interbank transfers has nothing to do with lack of investment in their IT infrastructure, and either a (rather strange) policy decision, or a byproduct of regulation. Since I am aware of it with at least 4 banks, the policy seems the most likely.

 

Btw: As mentioned in my previous post, I can do online interbank transfers with KTB (up to 5 million) *free of charge*, it sounds like you walk to SCB, withdraw money, and then deposit in the receiving bank, so maybe KTB is not all bad :)

 

[blackcab]

1 hour ago, lkn said:

Has this been changed from 50,000 baht?

 

No. You are probably getting confused with the requirements for walk-in customers who are unknown to the bank.

 

1 hour ago, lkn said:

For the AMLO report I imagine you need to include national ID number / passport number and possibly last known address.

 

The sending bank does not have to supply this type of information for the recipient. Don't forget that the recipient's bank will make a corresponding AMLO report. If you transfer 10 million baht to me using online banking, your bank would submit an AMLO, and so would mine.

 

1 hour ago, lkn said:

that would explain why these transactions must be scheduled as “next day”

 

No. You are conflating bank processes and AMLO requirements. "Next day" has nothing to do with AMLO regulations. "Next day" is a result of bank procedures, fees and the 3.30pm cut off time observed by the Thai banking network in general.

 

There are always ways to speed things up during business hours if you have a relationship with your bank and are prepared to pay the relevant fees.

 

2 hours ago, lkn said:

Perhaps you have a link to where the reporting requirements are stated?

 

The AMLO regulations are quite piecemeal, and you would have to go through them one at a time to build up a full picture:

 

http://www.amlo.go.th/index.php/en/ - click on the laws/policies/measures link. Many of the regulations are not translated into English, so you can look at the Thai version of the site for a wider search.

 

Alternatively you can view the consolidated information used by Bangkok bank, which I have attached.

BBL AML.pdf