Having a Thai wife does make a difference because she can be a guarantor to open the account.

What purpose does a guarantor serve for a savings account?

I wonder if the people who have trouble are trying to open a current account rather than the savings account they actually need.

Having a Thai wife does make a difference because she can be a guarantor to open the account.

What purpose does a guarantor serve for a savings account?

I wonder if the people who have trouble are trying to open a current account rather than the savings account they actually need.

It is more a reference than a guarantor. I called it what a Thai would probably call it. It is a character reference.

If with a Thai wife it could also be used as proof of address by using the address on her house book.

Here is a letter of reference from a link on the Bangkok Bank webpage I posted earlier. http://www.bangkokbank.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/Bangkok%20Bank/Personal%20Banking/Foreign%20Customers/Letter_of_Reference.pdf

Not recent, but maybe 6 or 7 years ago I was changing a fat wedge of crispy 20 quid notes at the Bangkok Bank on 2nd Road in Pattaya as a walk-in with no account and no plan to open one. I was a bit bored while they did their 3-tier bill counting and I asked the girl handling my transaction about opening an account. She asked the senior forex lady to her right who asked if I had a WP. When I said no, she said they couldn't. Then a few seconds later, the senior lady asked the assistant how much money I was exchanging. When she was told around 750k baht, the senior lady asked me directly where I was living and I told her I rented a house in Naklua. The account was opened in about 20 minutes, with a Non-O visa in my passport, no rental agreement or WP or Thai spouse or anything else.

It is a fact that some banks have a sort of 'closed doors' policy so legwork is always going to be factor but I would wager most people who get declined by the lower-echelon staff need to take it up a level and armed with a decent sized deposit, say 30k, I am sure they will miraculously qualify.