transfer money uk to thailand

[manfredtillmann]

an additional benefit of using 'transferwise' is that the money arrives as an 'internal' thai transfer and - with my bank - does not attract additional processing charges from them or an 'intermediate' bank.

'transferwise' informs me when and how much i get - and on that day i get just that, and nothing less.

i have used lots of others, 'transferwise' works best for me.

and as for the id problems... if your present transfer provider does not require them, chances are, they are breaking the law.

[Chivas]

1 hour ago, manfredtillmann said:

an additional benefit of using 'transferwise' is that the money arrives as an 'internal' thai transfer and - with my bank - does not attract additional processing charges from them or an 'intermediate' bank.

'transferwise' informs me when and how much i get - and on that day i get just that, and nothing less.

i have used lots of others, 'transferwise' works best for me.

and as for the id problems... if your present transfer provider does not require them, chances are, they are breaking the law.

 

As I said before if Transferwise transferring £10,000 ends up with a bottom line better than HSBC or Halifax I'll pay £500 to charity. You can try all day everyday it wont !

[Chivas]

lol just to prove a point this from Transferwise site copied and pasted re £10,000 transfer.....absolute jokers !!

"Fee (included): £ 113.78"

 

The lower the transfer from them the higher the percentage fee against it  !!  

 

 

Edited September 14, 2016 by Chivas

[Pib]

Yeap, while exchange rates may be very good a person needs to consider the associated transfer fee(s) applied before/during sending.   

 

Transferwise GBP to THB Fees (generally 1.5%)

https://transferwise.com/pricing#?from=GBP&to=THB

 

 

 

[The Fat Controller]

I made the Nationwide transfer online from Thailand, when the funds arrived in Thailand the following day, SCB called me on my Thai mobile to see if I wanted the conversion made straight away or hold off for a better rate.

No funds were missing, the full Sterling amount arrived.

I tried various FOREX companies just before I came to Thailand, but could not compete on rates and fees for the £50,000 I needed to transfer.

As for the sarcastic comments about ID checks, NW did that 13 years ago....

 

[Lite Beer]

I personally will not be transferring anything through NationWide any more.

Extortion at it's very best.

£52 fee to send a few quid.

Edited September 14, 2016 by Lite Beer

[manfredtillmann]

3 hours ago, Chivas said:

 

As I said before if Transferwise transferring £10,000 ends up with a bottom line better than HSBC or Halifax I'l l pay £500 to charity. You can try all day everyday it wont !

the issue might be - if i may disturb your thoughts - how much of your so advantageous exchange rate actually ends up in your account.

no point getting the best conversion rate if some intermediate bank, and your own, take a hefty chunk out of the balance...

[Chivas]

1 hour ago, manfredtillmann said:

the issue might be - if i may disturb your thoughts - how much of your so advantageous exchange rate actually ends up in your account.

no point getting the best conversion rate if some intermediate bank, and your own, take a hefty chunk out of the balance...

 

I'll explain so you can grasp the nettle. Halifax charge £9.50 and SCB 300 Baht.....HSBC charge £4 and SCB 300 Baht.......in very high transfers SCB charge a maximum of 500 Baht. Hopefully that helps you.

[Lite Beer]

Not if someone along the line charges £30 and you are not made aware of this until a month or two later.

[manfredtillmann]

12 hours ago, Chivas said:

 

I'll explain so you can grasp the nettle. Halifax charge £9.50 and SCB 300 Baht.....HSBC charge £4 and SCB 300 Baht.......in very high transfers SCB charge a maximum of 500 Baht. Hopefully that helps you.

because we are all different... some of us may face different scenarios when it comes to money transfers.

i.e. i do not have a bank account to start with. bank accounts are an expensive luxury in australia and i have saved my selves tens of thousands of dollars by not having to pay bank fees and paying much lower interest rates on my loans, in dealing with, what the ozzies call, a 'building society'.

 

as a result i do not have access to direct overseas transfers and instead use a non - bank service such as transferwise.

i have used several others before, ozforex, hifex, tor etc.

all these services use intermediate banks which deduct a, what appears to be random and always un - accounted for, amount of money.

so the scenario for me was: pay the known fee to the transfer service, have the money arrive at my thai bank minus the surprise amount and then have my bank take their cut as well. a not very satisfying chain of events.

 

using transferwise the situation is different: i do the deal, know the fee, get an ok exchange rate (better than any of the other mentioned services) and 3 days later the exact amount is in my thai account, having arrived as a thai - internal transfer. and no one takes a bite out of it. i like the complete transparency of this, the simplicity, reliability and i am happy with the price. 

 

i do not know if you can 'grasp the nettle' - what ever that is supposed to mean - but i generally avoid touching stuff that is bound to hurt me.

wishing you a really good day

mft

[Expattaff1308]

12 hours ago, Chivas said:

 

I'll explain so you can grasp the nettle. Halifax charge £9.50 and SCB 300 Baht.....HSBC charge £4 and SCB 300 Baht.......in very high transfers SCB charge a maximum of 500 Baht. Hopefully that helps you.

Thats fine if you have an account in either of these banks. Nationwide charge 20 then their intermediate bank slaps another fee on you often some months later, the thai charges are small by comparison.

[xraybaby]

I think the crucial decider is in the exchange rate offered, not the standing charges. I am with Lloyds in the UK, who charge GBP9.50 and send to my wife's Bangkok Bank account, who charge THB500. The exchange rate they give me is generally between 1.5 and 1.7 baht lower per pound than the advertised rate at the time. For example if advertised rate on XE.com says 49.00, I will get about 47.3 to 47.5. This is not too bad compared to my experience of other transfer companies' offered rates.

 

An alternative, if it is an option for you, is to take as much in cash (high denomination notes) from UK to Thailand, and exchange at the SuperRich counter downstairs in Suvarnabhumi - they normally give EXACTLY the day's advertised rate. They give marginally more for GBP50 notes than the smaller notes.

 

Personally I would recommend strongly against ever using HSBC - those muddyfunkers closed down my 20 years+ account about 2 or 3 years ago, precisely for "sending money to Thailand", which they said flagged up as a suspicious activity. They would not listen to reason when I told them it was a standard monthly payment to my wife's account, just gave me 3 months notice and shut down my account. It was part of their money-laundering clean up - shut down loads of innocent persons' accounts to make it look like they were trying to combat the billion dollar money-laundering racket they got caught involved in.

 

But I digress - basically I agree with Chivas, bank transfer over Forex companies, but SuperRich if you can!

[Chivas]

On 15/09/2016 at 5:40 AM, xraybaby said:

I think the crucial decider is in the exchange rate offered, not the standing charges. I am with Lloyds in the UK, who charge GBP9.50 and send to my wife's Bangkok Bank account, who charge THB500. The exchange rate they give me is generally between 1.5 and 1.7 baht lower per pound than the advertised rate at the time. For example if advertised rate on XE.com says 49.00, I will get about 47.3 to 47.5. This is not too bad compared to my experience of other transfer companies' offered rates.

 

 

 

 

 

The Rate you get is the TT rate on Bangkok Banks Website updated on regular basis. It wont be 1.5 to 1.7 Baht below Interbank at any time !

I use Halifax (same group Lloyds also same charge) and its rarely more than 0.45 under Interbank when the website is updated live

Edited September 22, 2016 by Chivas

[Pib]

Agree with Chivas.   The Thai bank TT Buying Rate will be approx 1% lower than the FX rates you see like on XE.com.   But keep in mind the FX rates you see like on XE.com is the exchange rate that BIG money banks/currency traders get; not what the common man gets in funds transfers.  

 

Just for example I took a snapshot of XE.com and Thai bank TT Buying Rates (what the common man gets) for GBP-THB as of  few minutes ago...doing the math shows approx a 1% difference when using the Thai banks "average" TT Buying Rate.  If using the one of the higher rates like the Thanachart Bank rate it's only 0.6%.

 

 

 

[elliss]

On 9/10/2016 at 7:05 PM, chiang mai said:

Transferwise is inbound to Thailand only, there is no outbound service.

 

 Transferwise is the best ,   Xendpay is  a  bit maybe ?

 customer response , not have ,  give it a no go . IMHO

  Nationwide ,  too exspensive . bye 

Edited September 27, 2016 by elliss
speling

[elliss]

1 minute ago, elliss said:

 

 Transferwise is the best ,  for inbound ,,   Xendpay is  a  bit maybe ?

 customer response , not have ,  give it a no go . IMHO

  Nationwide ,  too exspensive . bye 

       Outbound , ?  not have ,  really .

 

[elliss]

On 9/14/2016 at 4:53 PM, The Fat Controller said:

I made the Nationwide transfer online from Thailand, when the funds arrived in Thailand the following day, SCB called me on my Thai mobile to see if I wanted the conversion made straight away or hold off for a better rate.

No funds were missing, the full Sterling amount arrived.

I tried  various FOREX companies just before I came to Thailand, but could not compete on rates and fees for the £50,000 I needed to transfer.

As for the sarcastic comments about ID checks, NW did that 13 years ago....

 

 

    WOW ,  thirteen  years  ago ,  hope  you still  alive , enjoy  ,555

[Chivas]

On 14/09/2016 at 4:33 PM, Lite Beer said:

Not if someone along the line charges £30 and you are not made aware of this until a month or two later.

 

lol how are not going to be aware immediately....!!  1500 Baht on bottom line will be missing !!

[chiang mai]

6 hours ago, elliss said:

 

 

Transferwise does not offer an outbound funds transfer service from Thailand to anywhere, they are not allowed to.

[Briggsy]

On 27/09/2016 at 6:08 PM, Chivas said:

 

lol how are not going to be aware immediately....!!  1500 Baht on bottom line will be missing !!

I understand why you think that but you would be amazed at how many expats are unaware of the intermediary fees and swear blind there are none.

 

In order to know what they are you need to ask the receiving bank how much they received in sterling. Many people do not do this and assume there are no fees taken out by intermediary banks.

 

If you refer to my post earlier in the thread, I talk about this and the fact that these charges are not obvious to the owner of the funds.

 

In order to find the true cost or "loss on the transfer" the four components of the cost, 1. sending bank charges, 2. intermediary bank charges, 3. recipient bank charges and 4. exchange rate loss, need to be totalled.

Edited September 30, 2016 by Briggsy

[Bazle]

Back in November, I transferred £4K from my HSBC account in the UK to my Krungsri account in Pattaya. I did an internet transfer in Sterling and ticked the box that said I (my HSBC account) would pick up all the charges.

 

The options I was given were:

* I want to pay all the fees
* I want the payee to pay all the fees
* I want to pay the HSBC UK fees

 

The HSBC electronic transfer fee was just £4, and Krungsri did not debit my account with any charges.

 

However, about a week later, a mysterious debit of £20 appeared on my HSBC account. It has taken weeks and about 30 emails to get to this stage but the upshot seems to be that Krungsri charged HSBC the £20, which they passed on to me. Eventually, Krungsri admitted to that, so I asked them how the charge was calculated. They won't tell me as they say it is in accordance with a confidential agreement. I've gone back to HSBC but, so far, no info. forthcoming.

 

I am concerned that the £20 might be a percentage of the amount transferred (0.5%) rather than a flat fee, meaning larger amounts could potentially end up giving rise to a hefty fee. That is a good deal for Krungsri, considering also the margin they get on the exchange rate.

 

Have you had anything like this when you have transferred money?

 

Useful comments/advice would be appreciated.

[Pib]

I expect since you selected that you wanted to pay all charges as the sender, when the funds arrived Krungsri with that coding they could not apply their standard 0.25% (Bt200 min, Bt500 max) receiving fee.  And it doesn't matter if you are sending to another account your own.   So, to collect their fee Krungsri had to submit a charge back up-stream and it was a higher around due to their extra administrative work and delay involved....and it took a while for the charge to arrive back at your UK bank.   Over the years I've seen quite a few TV posts from folks using various Thai banks getting hit with such a delayed charge.

 

You should have selected "I want to pay the HSBC UK fees" which means you only pay the fees occurring on the sending end but the beneficiary (receiver) gets all remaining fees that occur along the way like any correspondent/intermediary bank fee and the Thai bank receiving fee.   Some banks refer to this way as "Shared fees."     This way no fees are fed back-up stream for payment like what happened to you.

 

When you are sending to yourself you probably should select the shared fee method to minimize total fees and prevent delayed fees going back up-stream.  However, if you need an exact amount to arrive like to pay a bill, then sending the way you did is best but possibly the most expensive fee-wise.

 

 

[Bazle]

2 hours ago, Pib said:

You should have selected "I want to pay the HSBC UK fees" which means you only pay the fees occurring on the sending end but the beneficiary (receiver) gets all remaining fees that occur along the way like any correspondent/intermediary bank fee and the Thai bank receiving fee.   Some banks refer to this way as "Shared fees."    This way no fees are fed back-up stream for payment like what happened to you.

 

 

Thanks for your comments. I have tried (unsuccessfully) to get Krungsri to confirm that if I choose that option:

1. Their fee to me would be capped at 500 Baht, and

2. They would make no charge to HSBC (which, of course, would be passed on to me)

 

Do you think that it is reasonably safe to proceed on the basis that both those are so?

[elliss]

On 9/28/2016 at 4:45 AM, chiang mai said:

 

Transferwise does not offer an outbound funds transfer service from Thailand to anywhere, they are not allowed to.

 

       Good comment .

 Does  any  company  offer  outbound funds  transfer from Thailand to UK ?. 

 

Edited January 22, 2017 by elliss

[Bazle]

6 minutes ago, elliss said:

 

       Good comment .

 Does  any  company  offer  outbound funds  transfer from Thailand to UK ?. 

 

 

Perhaps that question would be better asked in an appropriate thread - e.g. 

 

[chiang mai]

4 hours ago, elliss said:

 

       Good comment .

 Does  any  company  offer  outbound funds  transfer from Thailand to UK ?. 

 

 

Just the banks, it's a function of BOT and THB being a restricted currency.

[Briggsy]

8 hours ago, Bazle said:

 

Thanks for your comments. I have tried (unsuccessfully) to get Krungsri to confirm that if I choose that option:

1. Their fee to me would be capped at 500 Baht, and

2. They would make no charge to HSBC (which, of course, would be passed on to me)

 

Do you think that it is reasonably safe to proceed on the basis that both those are so?

Yes and yes, although I am not providing a 100% guarantee.

 

You have not factored in charges by intermediary banks. These would explain why you were charged £20 which is clearly more than 500 Baht. £10 would be a normal intermediary bank charge. They would also explain the apparent reticence of HSBC and Krungsri that you allude to. My experience is that sending banks and receiving banks are loath to make any statement referring to intermediary banks due to the fact that they are not responsible and have no control over the intermediary's bank's actions.

 

You can calculate the effect of the intermediary bank(s) on your transfer by asking for the receipt of funds slip from Krungsri. This is free. Then, since you know how much you sent, you can calculate, working backwards, how much the intermediary bank took.

[Pib]

Krungsri charges a 0.25% (Bt200 min, Bt500 max) receiving fee for incoming international transfers.   Typical for Thai banks.

 

Now if HSBC must use an intermediary/correspondent bank (i.e., middle man bank) to get the money to Krungsri Bank then that correspondent bank may slice off a fee.  Only HSBC can tell you if they are using an intermediary bank; Krungsri can not.   Blame HSBC for any intermediary bank fees; not Krungsri...not the receiving Thai bank.

 

Krungsri can only tell you how much money arrived their inbox so to speak and what fee they charged....they can not tell you what other middle man folks may have sliced off on its way from HSBC.

[elliss]

9 hours ago, Bazle said:

 

Perhaps that question would be better asked in an appropriate thread - e.g. 

 

 

                  Thank you ,  for  the link .

[Bazle]

10 hours ago, Briggsy said:

Yes and yes, although I am not providing a 100% guarantee.

 

You have not factored in charges by intermediary banks. These would explain why you were charged £20 which is clearly more than 500 Baht. £10 would be a normal intermediary bank charge. They would also explain the apparent reticence of HSBC and Krungsri that you allude to. My experience is that sending banks and receiving banks are loath to make any statement referring to intermediary banks due to the fact that they are not responsible and have no control over the intermediary's bank's actions.

 

You can calculate the effect of the intermediary bank(s) on your transfer by asking for the receipt of funds slip from Krungsri. This is free. Then, since you know how much you sent, you can calculate, working backwards, how much the intermediary bank took.

Many thanks for that.

 

In your experience, is the intermediary bank fee a fixed amount or a percentage of the amount transferred?