Offshore Accounts for Thai Citizens

[AyG]

A few questions relating to Thai citizens' financial affairs:

(1) Is it legal for a Thai citizen to open an offshore bank account?

(2) Is it legal for a Thai citizen to open an offshore brokerage account?

(3) In each case, if so, would the citizen have a problem transferring money from the account into Thailand where a third party (thinking here of myself) had funded those accounts?

[Robert24]

1) yes 2) yes 3) no problem

[AyG]

On (2) a lot of the Thai brokerage websites have statements along the following lines:

"Offshore Trading : In the past, investors in Thailand had been faced with limitation and regulation of money transferring in and out of Thailand. They were not allowed to trade securities in other exchanges beside Stock Exchange of Thailand. Under this regulation in the past, investors in Thailand had to limit their investment only within Thailand. Definitely, those investors have to face with “Thailand Internal Risk” and “Thai Baht Devalued Risk” without other choices.

However, Bank of Thailand has loosened up this regulation and allowed Thai investors to transfer their fund out of Thailand to invest aboard directly via Thai brokerage firms." (Bold mine)

That's from Thannachart, but they're basically all the same. To me that suggests that Thai people are not allowed to invest outside Thailand, except through Thai brokerage firms. Am I missing something?

[Misty]

On (2) a lot of the Thai brokerage websites have statements along the following lines:

"Offshore Trading : In the past, investors in Thailand had been faced with limitation and regulation of money transferring in and out of Thailand. They were not allowed to trade securities in other exchanges beside Stock Exchange of Thailand. Under this regulation in the past, investors in Thailand had to limit their investment only within Thailand. Definitely, those investors have to face with “Thailand Internal Risk” and “Thai Baht Devalued Risk” without other choices.

However, Bank of Thailand has loosened up this regulation and allowed Thai investors to transfer their fund out of Thailand to invest aboard directly via Thai brokerage firms." (Bold mine)

That's from Thannachart, but they're basically all the same. To me that suggests that Thai people are not allowed to invest outside Thailand, except through Thai brokerage firms. Am I missing something?

As I understand it, the problem for Thai investors is in moving funds from inside Thailand into an overseas brokerage account. Due to BOT regulations Thai financial institutions are unlikely to transfer funds for the purpose of investing in an overseas brokerage account. However, if the funds are already outside of Thailand (ex: savings from a foreign job, gift from a foreign spouse, sale of a foreign business or house) there does not seem to be a requirement to immediately remit those funds back to Thailand. So in those cases Thai people might use funds that are already overseas to invest using an overseas brokerage account.