SCB Inactive Bank Account

[KhonJaiYen]

I'm currently not in LOS because of working abroad. Anyway, I have a US dollar account with SCB and the other day they sent a letter to the house in Thailand and wifey read it. They said that the letter will be the first of 3 to enquire about the lack of activity with this account. After a 3 letters they will stop inquiring about the account and class it as inactive. But, what does mean? Comments please

[sfguy]

It may mean they are going to close the account. I am in a similar situation. How long has your account been inactive?

[meatboy]

i got one from bangkok bank which i dont use anymore although there's about 900bht.in it.

if the balance is below 1,000bht then they will start taking 100bht.a month.i got till the end of march to withdraw the balance before they start thieving it.

[shirtless]

it means the account is closed and balance gone

[Pib]

It means they will close the account eventually. And they may start applying a monthly maintenance fee before the closure date which effectively draws it down to zero after X-amount of time and then they close it.

I realize the OP is talking a foreign currency account, but just as FYI, for a "typical Thai bank savings account" when the account drops below Bt2,000 for 12 months with no user activity (has to meet both criteria of balance and time) the bank will start applying a monthly maintenance fee of around Bt50 until the balance reaches zero and then the account is closed. I know the OP is talking a foreign currency account but I expect rules of some minimum balance and frequency of use apply...usually foreign currency accounts have higher minimum values which must be kept before some type of fee kicks in or closure may occur. A person needs to review the terms and conditions of their particular account.

Just last month I got an automated notice in the mail to my Bangkok residence from Bangkok Bank that my "Direct Deposit" savings account saying "Inactive for more than one year." Now this is true as it's an account I opened about 5 years ago in order to receive a U.S. Govt Monthly Pension via direct deposit....it's a special type of account for U.S. Govt Pensions and possibly has slightly different inactivity rules. I used the account for several months and then stopped the pension from flowing to the account but kept the account open with over Bt5,000 in it just in case I ever need to use it in the future for some type of U.S. govt pension. I think once or twice I transferred a few baht via ibanking into it while just playing around with ibanking and to confirm I could transfer money "into" the account....but the last time I transferred a little bit of money into it was well over a year ago. Based on the minimum Bt2,000 balance rule I talked about in the first paragraph I was surprised to get the notice. So, just to play it safe on the day I got the notice I transferred Bt100 into the account via ibanking and then a few days later just decided to draw it down to around Bt2,500 so I went and did a teller withdrawal...so I showed two user activities...one via ibanking transfer and one via teller transaction...hopefully I'm good to go now...I didn't contact Bangkok Bank to confirm. Seems the Bt2,000 balance didn't keep me from getting a notice, but that may be because it's a Direct Deposit account vs a Regular Savings account...I don't know.

Anyway, there were 3 entries on this automated notice I got..and only the first notice was checked for me. A quote of the 3 entries follow...the entries were in Thai and English:

1. Inactive for more than one year.

2. A maintenance fee will be deducted if the account is inactive until the date shown.

3. Inactive for more than one year according to the notice given earlier. The bank has deducted the maintenance fee of:

Now in #2 above, there was no date shown...probably would have been if that entry had been selected as the reason they sent me the notice, but the reason checked for me was #1.

Yeap, I was surprised to get the notice....I have several other regular and fixed accounts with Bangkok Bank but I'm showing regular activity with those accounts...it was just this one account that I haven't shown any activity in for at least a year....probably closer to two years when I think I transferred a couple of baht via ibanking while playing around with ibanking.

[VBF]

KJY,

I have a Baht account with SCB and also don't live in Thailand all the time. Because of that, I visited my branch in May 2013, spoke to a manager about this and other stuff. I suspect that the same applies to USD accounts.

This is what I was told:

• If there is no activity on the account for 1 year and the account contains β5000 * or less, then a fee of β 50 / month is charged until the account is empty – then it is closed.

• If there is no activity on the account and the account contains more than β5000 *, nothing happens – account is left in situ ad infinitum. NOTE * There is some conjecture as to whether this amount is β5000 or β2000, however if you allow for the annual β200 fee for the card, then β5000 seems to be safer.

Hope it helps

VBF

Edited March 9, 2015 by VBF