Repatriating funds - where to get the best forex rate?

[puuchaibaa]

I'll soon be repatriating back to Canada and need to convert Thai baht into Canadian dollars. Onshore still seems to be the best bet, but only slightly as Thai bank spreads keep getting greedier and greedier.

Anyway, the CAD I receive would have to be in the form of a bank draft or electronic transfer. Bank notes is not possible with the amount involved. I dread having to use the established banks and their rates, but this might be my only choice. Anyone have any other strategies?

[GinBoy2]

Having been looking at this as part of my own 'hedging my bets' strategy'...Onshore for sure (mine is a USD repat, but sure not significantly different to CAD), I looked at local currency transfer to US, that conversion was significantly worse.

I'm personally just going with the electronic transfer from my own bank, SCB...after looking around the differences are marginal, and why complicate the FET requirements more than they already are by moving money around prior to the transfer?

[puuchaibaa]

... why complicate the FET requirements more than they already are by moving money around prior to the transfer?

Good point on moving money around. However, my bank (Citibank) gives crappy exchange rates, including their so called 'preferential' client rates. And that's for over the counter rates (notes, cheques, etc). Rates on their electronic transfers are especially bad which is counter to usual banking practices. Citibank Thailand loves to tout that they offer fee free international intra bank transfers but they what don't tell you is that they apply really lousy exchange rates on those transfers.

Edited June 16, 2016 by puuchaibaa

[lkv]

Let's use today as an example to get an idea of which banks are the greediest.

Selling TT rate

Citibank 27.83847

KTB 27.53

Kasikorn 27.52688

Bangkok Bank 27.555

CIMB Thai 27.6019

SCB 27.59375

As we can see, the greediest is Citibank, and the cheapest Kasikorn when you buy CAD via TT.

Solution: transfer all the baht from Citibank to Kasikorn. For higher amounts Kasikorn would also give a negotiated rate.

By higher amount, Kasikorn understands over USD 20K equivalent.

Rates above are retail rates.

Put it this way. Every 10K CAD transferred will save you 3,080 baht. Every 100K CAD transferred will save you 30,800 baht with the above scheme.

The cost of local transfer from Citibank to another bank should be a few hundred baht probably.

Note that interbank local transfers of over 2 million baht will most likely be delayed, so it's recommeded to keep it under 2 million baht per transfer.

If you don't have a Kasikorn account, open one. If you can't, the next best option is Bangkok Bank. Bangkok bank will allow international transfers in branch easily up to 50K USD particularly if you show them proof of where the money came from. Above 50K USD equivalent, a declaration form will have to be sent to the Bank of Thailand. To avoid that, if the amount is higher it can be split into several amounts lower than 50K USD equivalent.

Edited June 17, 2016 by lkv