Bank deposit protection to fall to 1 million next year

[AyG]

I think a lot of people (including myself) very much doubted that bank deposition protection would fall from 50 million baht to 1 million. However, according to press reports today, the Deposit Protection Agency has started promoting that it is going to happen in August next year, asking banks to notify their affected customers. And 1 million is not a lot of protection.

It's been suggested that government owned banks will be secure, with the Finance Ministry covering the risk. Not sure how true this will be.

For me, it's highly likely that I will keep less money in the banks here. Unfortunately, offshore accounts in THB pay very little interest, so there'll be currency risk to contend with.

One other tiny tidbit was that the banks pay 0.47% of deposits each year, 0.01% to the Deposit Protection Agency and 0.46% to pay off debts from the 1997 financial crisis bank bailout. It amazes me that so long after the crisis the debts haven't been paid off. When they are, one can hope that bank interest rates will rise.