Krungsri first choice platinum

[Johnniey]

KTB are very racist. Be careful certain things they promise do't apply if you're not Thai. One example is the debit card they sold me with insurance, well the insurance only is valid for Thais.

I've been with them for years and they wouldn't offer me any interest.

However, their online banking is quite good and they did give me a mortgage but that was really only due to my wife being Thai..

Regarding the no interest comment, that's because your particular KTB branch has you coded as a non-resident. If you have a long stay visa be sure to show them that; otherwise, get a residence certificate from your servicing Thai immigration office or home country embassy...and you may still have to get the certificate even if having a long stay visa/extension of stay.

Over the years I've seen quite a few posts of ThaiVisa members who are not getting interest even though they have lived in Thailand for years and have long stay visas because their bank branch has intentionally or by mistake coded their account as non-resident. And this is by no means limited to KTB branches but other Thai bank branches also.

You may be with a branch that is not expat friendly even though they are super polite and all smiles when you visit the branch. Most likely it's the branch manager that has a less than positive attitude regarding farang accounts.

They've seen my work permit, my pay goes there from my work and they've also seen my yellow house registration book!

Change bank?

My work don't allow it.

[Pib]

@Johnniey,

You have a work permit and yellow book...plus with a work permit that means you have a long term visa. And your employer apparently has a direct deposit agreement with KTB requiring your pay to be direct deposited there. That's about as "being a resident" as it comes in my book.

That KTB branch is using your money to make money for themselves (like to fund loans such as the mortgage loan they gave you/your wife) while they do not pay you any interest on your savings account---great deal from KTB which is a state owned bank. Got to be super frustrating.

My Thai wife has an account at a KTB branch (no choice) to receive a monthly govt direct deposit payment...she gets interest. We have several joint and single accounts at Bangkok Bank and Krungsri Bank and all accounts earn interest. I have retirement extension of stay and Yellow Book....but didn't have that Yellow Book nor Retirement Extension numerous years back (only a 30 day entry stamp) when opening a joint account with the wife at a Bangkok Bank branch--and it paid interest.

By chance does your wife have KTB savings account in her name only? If so, does she get interest? Or, do you have a joint account with the wife but since your name is on the account with you being a farang is that supposedly what prevents interest being paid according to your branch?

Doing a search on ThaiVisa it's easy to come up with ThaiVisa members complaining about no interest being paid on their KTB accounts such as the two below I picked at random from page 1 of my search...a 2016 post and a 2011 post. But you can find more and similar posts regarding most Thai banks such as K-Bank, Bangkok Bank, SCB, etc., not paying interest to some farangs. But most of those posts appear to be "branch-specific" related and/or once again not being coded as a resident as the core problem. But as well stated in the second link/post below it probably boils down to them coding you in there system as a "resident" as I also mentioned earlier. But I realize getting some branches to accept a person as a resident is the real challenge...going to depend on formal/informal policies of that branch. You might want to bump your issue up to HQ KTB but I realize that risks damaging your current relationship with your KTB branch. Good luck.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/260738-opening-a-new-bank-account-in-thailand/?p=10574566

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/467099-krung-thai-bank-offers-higher-interest-to-lure-customers-to-new-netbank/?p=4416724

[chefseph]

Yep that's it exactly. It's affiliated with Krungsri but it has separate website/phone etc

even their automated phone line does not have English options as normal banks.

Oh well you live and learn lol

I was thinking of applying for one of these but if they have no English staff on their call Centre or phone options I don't think I will now....

Pity because it looks like a decent card but my Thai ain't good enough yet to explain complicated financial problems over the phone if anything goes wrong ...

Retail branches of krungsri can take applications for either "arm", be that the traditional krungsri cards or First Choice cards as well. If you are physically in Bangkok, both offices are in the same building, albeit different floors.

I went with a co-worker last week to help him apply. We went to the krungsri branch in Paragon and they did both applications (with his permission) krungsri as well as FC, and he only needed one set of original documents for the two applications (but you have to file the applications at the same time/place)

So, if you can find a branch of krungsri that you like, are familiar with, you can make an application for one or both.

On the service side, in those few times when I've had an issue that I either couldn't explain over the phone or wasn't clearly understood by phone staff, I've gone to a larger branch of the bank (under the assumption that there will be someone whose English skills are sufficient) and always had the matter addressed in person. Super easy? Well, I'd prefer not to have to go to the bank if I don't have to, but in the end given how often I have had to do this, I don't count it as a major issue.

but when you get a brick in a box instead of a laptop you ordered from a dodgy chinese merchant and they have no english option in their call centre ?

that would be a deal breaker for me because i hate having to ask other people to help me fix these kinda things .....if they want my bisiness ,they need to add at least 1 english speaking thai to the cakll centre

i want to update this thread and say to be fair that 3rd time i called first choice telephone number 023456789 - i was put through to a very good english speaking male within 30 secs so they do have capable staff.

i guess i was just unlucky the first few times.

he directed me to a pop up branch for first choice in big c chitlom as i was passing through bangkok and there was a very good guy there who spoke good english and set up and explained anything i asked.

[Johnniey]

@Johnniey,

You have a work permit and yellow book...plus with a work permit that means you have a long term visa. And your employer apparently has a direct deposit agreement with KTB requiring your pay to be direct deposited there. That's about as "being a resident" as it comes in my book.

That KTB branch is using your money to make money for themselves (like to fund loans such as the mortgage loan they gave you/your wife) while they do not pay you any interest on your savings account---great deal from KTB which is a state owned bank. Got to be super frustrating.

My Thai wife has an account at a KTB branch (no choice) to receive a monthly govt direct deposit payment...she gets interest. We have several joint and single accounts at Bangkok Bank and Krungsri Bank and all accounts earn interest. I have retirement extension of stay and Yellow Book....but didn't have that Yellow Book nor Retirement Extension numerous years back (only a 30 day entry stamp) when opening a joint account with the wife at a Bangkok Bank branch--and it paid interest.

By chance does your wife have KTB savings account in her name only? If so, does she get interest? Or, do you have a joint account with the wife but since your name is on the account with you being a farang is that supposedly what prevents interest being paid according to your branch?

Doing a search on ThaiVisa it's easy to come up with ThaiVisa members complaining about no interest being paid on their KTB accounts such as the two below I picked at random from page 1 of my search...a 2016 post and a 2011 post. But you can find more and similar posts regarding most Thai banks such as K-Bank, Bangkok Bank, SCB, etc., not paying interest to some farangs. But most of those posts appear to be "branch-specific" related and/or once again not being coded as a resident as the core problem. But as well stated in the second link/post below it probably boils down to them coding you in there system as a "resident" as I also mentioned earlier. But I realize getting some branches to accept a person as a resident is the real challenge...going to depend on formal/informal policies of that branch. You might want to bump your issue up to HQ KTB but I realize that risks damaging your current relationship with your KTB branch. Good luck.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/260738-opening-a-new-bank-account-in-thailand/?p=10574566

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/467099-krung-thai-bank-offers-higher-interest-to-lure-customers-to-new-netbank/?p=4416724

Thanks for that.

I called the HQ and they said they would reply in 1 hour. 3 hours later I got a woman from KTB who was rather upset. She couldn't speak any English, which wasn't very professional but we carried on as I speak Thai. She basically said that when I applied 8 years ago, my WP was only for 3 months. So I asked if I could come in and show my present WP and Tabien Bahn(house book). She said that foreigner don't get a Taien bahn and under no circumstances would they give foreigners interest. I asked to speak to the manager but he was out. I said I would visit him tomorrow as it is a disgrace.

[Pib]

Around 3 years ago the wife and I had a Bangkok Bank account in a branch in a province next to Bangkok...the branch is about 50Km from where we currently live...we had opened the account at that branch around 10 years ago since it was close to the MIL. When I renewed my passport I did the good little farang thing and went to each of my Bangkok Bank branches I had accounts with at the time which was above mentioned provincial bank and the branch on the first floor of the HQ Bangkok building in Bangkok. Each branch did some paperwork,to included some passbook update, and updated their IT system

Anyway the main Bangkok branch gave us a complete new passbook. That new passbook included the new passport number on the last page which can only be seen under a blacklight...the same last page where they have you sign the passbook but your signature can only be seen under a blacklight. But the provincial bank just typed in the new passport number on the back page with a typewriter to save the cost of issuing a new passbook. OK, at the time, I figure either way was good...figured the branches know best. But I immediately started having ibanking problems in doing certain transaction. Over a week or so I made numerous calls to the Bangkok Bank Help Number 1333...they worked the ibanking problem and finally located the problem in the provincial bank not doing the passbook update correctly...they needed to issue a new passbook; not just reuse the old one with the new passport number typed in. Basically, the ibanking system was now reflecting two passport numbers for me, the old one and new one, their ibanking system saw a problem with my account and just wouldn't let me do certain ibanking transactions.

During this process the Call Center folk contacted one of the supervisors at the provincial bank telling them of "their error"...that branch supervisor called the Thai wife and oscillated between being mad and super apologetic. The wife thought it to be a strange call in how the supervisor talked. The supervisor was apparently mad because the HQ Bangkok Bank folks had contacted the branch to tell them they messed up (loss of face thing I guess) and what "they needed to do to fix my problem" because I was giving the Call Center a headache as I had had also been able to contact a senior level person at the Call Center.

Anyway, we went back to the branch, was given a new passbook with plenty of apologies and they asked always contact them regarding a problem before calling the HQ Bangkok Bank. But heck, I had no clue the problem was related to a mistake they made...that's why I contacted the Bangkok Bank Call Center My ibanking problem went away just as soon as they issued the new passbook which made the Bangkok Bank ibanking system happy with my accounts again.

A little later we closed our account at that provincial bank because we had had minor problems with them over the years (some of them apparently because I was a farang) and there was close to zero English capability at that branch. However, we had not had problems with our branch(es) here in Bangkok. When we went in to close the account they tried hard to talk us out of it, even that supervisor, but we just said since we now live in Bangkok we really don't need an account in their branch anymore...but thanks for the years of service...bye.

KTB sure seems to be very resistive in not wanting to give interest on your account since you are a farang...excuse me, haven't met some additional paperwork requirement for farangs. I wonder with them being state-owned has anything to do with that attitude? And they now seem to be digging for excuses...probably some protection of face going on also. Unless you don't have much choice in which KTB branch you have an account with, I think I would try to open an account at another KTB branch with emphasis on ensuring you get coded as a resident for your employment direct deposit. If you can open another account (interest paying) then drop the problem branch in a few months after you are sure the new branch is not boning you on interest. Good luck.

P.S. You might want to contact Financial Consumer Protection Center of the Bank of Thailand to file a complaint. Their web site is in English also. That should get get some action.

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