Money Transfer / America to Thailand

[mtls2005]

Your home bank may also charge a small fee to initiate an ACH transfer to BBL/NYC - mine charges $3.

 

You may also be required to utilize a One-Time Password to initiate a transfer on-line - mine does for amounts greater than $1,000 - so check that and make sure you can accommodate the verification procedures (SecureID, SMS, email, etc.).

 

It may be easier and/or less expensive to simply use an ATM card here: AEON is still 150 THB, Bank of China (MC only, few ATMs) may still be fee-free? Some local banks are up to 180-200-220 baht fees. Some financial institutions in the U.S. rebate ATM fees (Fidelity, Schwab). Just have the U.S. people send your $2,000 to a Fidelity/Schwab account?

 

If it's a Social Security payment, I think you can set those up to be automagic directly from SSA to/via BBL/NYC to BBL/THA (with the fees of course), but I think you may have to go your branch in THA to "release" the funds.

 

Check with the local bank in Thailand to verify the incoming fees; check with the originating bank re: SWIFT fees. Assuming no impacts of currency fluctuations, maybe aggregate 2 or more months "payments" into one SWIFT transfer if that method is best?

 

If the local THA account exceeds $10,000 don't forget to file an FBAR annually.

 

 

Edited April 30, 2017 by mtls2005

[lopburi3]

3 minutes ago, mtls2005 said:

Your home bank may also charge a small fee to initiate an ACH transfer to BBL/NYC - mine charges $3.

 

You may also be required to utilize a One-Time Password to initiate a transfer on-line - mine does for amounts greater than $1,000 - so check that and make sure you can accommodate the verification procedures (SecureID, SMS, email, etc.).

 

It may be less expensive to simply use an ATM card here: AEON is still 150 THB, Bank of China (MC only, few ATMs) may still be fee-free? Some local banks are up to 180-200-220 baht fees. Some financial institutions in the U.S. rebate ATM fees (Fidelity, Schwab). 

 

If it's a Social Security payment, I think you can set those up to be automagic via BBL/NYC to BBL/THA (with the fees of course), but I think you may have to go your branch in THA to "release" the funds.

Bangkok Bank requires US Federal direct deposit to be into special accounts with no card access in Thailand - so yes you would have to set up such an account and personally visit bank for any transfer or withdrawal.  The reason for this is Bangkok Bank is responsible for repayment to source for any deposit made after death of account holder.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, mtls2005 said:

Your home bank may also charge a small fee to initiate an ACH transfer to BBL/NYC - mine charges $3.

If it were me, I'd look to do my U.S. ACH transfers with a bank that did NOT charge me $3 for every transfer.

 

Quote

It may be easier and/or less expensive to simply use an ATM card here: AEON is still 150 THB,

 

The problem with AEON is, they're limited to 20K per withdrawal. So, to get approx $2000 / 68K baht per month as the OP said he desired, you'd need to do 4 withdrawals (4x20K baht) and pay a total of 600 baht in ATM fees. Three AEON withdrawals would net him only 60K at most for 450 baht in fees.

 

If he used TMB or Krungsri, he could get 60K for 440 baht in fees, 10 baht less in fees than AEON's 450 baht fees for the same 60K. Or if he needed to go up to 90K baht, that would carry 660 baht in fees (3 x 220b) with Krungsri or TMB, making AEON's 4 withdrawals totaling 80K and 600 baht in fees a better deal.

 

So AEON would have fewer/less fees (600 baht) to do 4 withdrawals totaling $2000 / 68K baht. But if he could get by on 60K baht, Krungsri and TMB would be cheaper at two withdrawals totaling 440 baht in fees.

 

Of course, all of the above depends on the OP having a home country bank card that allows ATM withdrawals of at least 20K or 30K per day. If he's using a card that has a $500 (17K baht) or less daily limit as many U.S. banks do, he won't be able to do either a 20K or 30K withdrawal in a single day anyway. And that means even more ATM fees any way he goes.

 

Ideally, you want to me using a U.S. bank card that allows ATM withdrawals up to $1000 per day at least, and preferably, one that reimburses you for the Thai ATM fees and has no foreign currency fee of its own. Which brings us back to Schwab, Fidelity and a few others.

 

 

 

Edited April 30, 2017 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Of course, if anyone was needing to do that number of ATM withdrawals per month and paying the fees themselves (not having them reimbursed), then going the BKK Bank New York route clearly is going to be the better option.

 

[Jingthing]

42 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

If it were me, I'd look to do my U.S. ACH transfers with a bank that did NOT charge me $3 for every transfer.

 

The problem with AEON is, they're limited to 20K per withdrawal. So, to get approx $2000 / 68K baht per month as the OP said he desired, you'd need to do 4 withdrawals (4x20K baht) and pay a total of 600 baht in ATM fees. Three AEON withdrawals would net him only 60K at most for 450 baht in fees.

 

If he used TMB or Krungsri, he could get 60K for 440 baht in fees, 10 baht less in fees than AEON's 450 baht fees for the same 60K. Or if he needed to go up to 90K baht, that would carry 660 baht in fees (3 x 220b) with Krungsri or TMB, making AEON's 4 withdrawals totaling 80K and 600 baht in fees a better deal.

 

So AEON would have fewer/less fees (600 baht) to do 4 withdrawals totaling $2000 / 68K baht. But if he could get by on 60K baht, Krungsri and TMB would be cheaper at two withdrawals totaling 440 baht in fees.

 

Of course, all of the above depends on the OP having a home country bank card that allows ATM withdrawals of at least 20K or 30K per day. If he's using a card that has a $500 (17K baht) or less daily limit as many U.S. banks do, he won't be able to do either a 20K or 30K withdrawal in a single day anyway. And that means even more ATM fees any way he goes.

 

Ideally, you want to me using a U.S. bank card that allows ATM withdrawals up to $1000 per day at least, and preferably, one that reimburses you for the Thai ATM fees and has no foreign currency fee of its own. Which brings us back to Schwab, Fidelity and a few others.

 

 

 

Fidelity is actively closing or locking accounts they identify as Americans living abroad. 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Just now, Jingthing said:

Fidelity is actively closing or locking accounts they identify as Americans living abroad. 

Yes, but fortunately, that hasn't been an issue with Schwab.

 

And, notwithstanding Fidelity's efforts, there still clearly are Fidelity customers here who manage to maintain their Fidelity accounts. By doing such common sense things as NOT reporting a Thailand address or phone number on their account profiles.

 

[Jingthing]

Just now, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Yes, but fortunately, that hasn't been an issue with Schwab.

 

And, notwithstanding Fidelity's efforts, there still clearly are Fidelity customers here who manage to maintain their Fidelity accounts. By doing such common sense things as NOT reporting a Thailand address or phone number on their account profiles.

 

Yes, but they are VERY aggressively trying to smoke out people that they suspect. 

Be paranoid.

For example, make sure to disable "show images" on email accounts. They can show that opened their emails abroad.

[Pib]

35 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Yes, but they are VERY aggressively trying to smoke out people that they suspect. 

Be paranoid.

For example, make sure to disable "show images" on email accounts. They can show that opened their emails abroad.

 

Use a gmail email account to minimize the show image IP address association.   But yea, not opening the image is the safest way.

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/145919?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en

 

Quote

 

How Gmail helps make images safe

To help load images safely, images go through Google's image proxy servers and are transcoded before they're delivered.

This makes images safer because:

• Senders can’t use image loading to get information like your IP address or location.
• Senders can’t use the image to set or read cookies in your browser.
• Gmail checks the images for known viruses or malware.

In some cases, senders may be able to know whether you've opened an email that has an image attached to a unique link. Gmail scans every message for suspicious content, and if Gmail considers a sender or message potentially suspicious, images won’t be shown and you’ll be asked whether you want to see the images.

 

 

[Oohwan]

Thank you all for the suggestions many post have been extremely informative. 

 

Unfortunately the sender back in the U.S in not computer savvy, so I think all these online options wouldn't work.  

 

The sender is elderly and feels secure dealing with her bank face to face.  

 

Out of all these suggestions, is there a way for the sender to make a transfer directly with her bank face to face, into something I can set up myself here in Thailand? 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The other thing that hasn't really been mentioned here is that having a, for example, $2000 a month budget doesn't have to mean actually transferring/exchanging $2000 to Thai baht yourself every month.

 

If someone has no foreign currency fee U.S. debit or credit cards, especially in Bangkok, you can use those to pay for a lot of expenses directly in Thailand. And that saves on/reduces having to withdraw cash from Thai ATMs or making international fund transfers. And as Pib would mention, using no fee credit cards with cash back perks further increases your benefit.

 

For example, I would roughly calculate that of my total monthly budget/expenses, I get about 50% of it from cash withdrawn from Thai ATMs with no foreign currency fee and no ATM fees paid. And the other half is covered via purchases with no foreign currency fee bank cards -- restaurants, shopping, medical expenses, insurance premiums, travel, purchasing things abroad and having them re-shipped here, etc etc.

 

That's probably going to be more difficult out in the boonies vs in one of the bigger Thai cities. But anything you can do to reduce the need to pay any fees for ATM withdrawals or international fund transfers is going to be to your benefit.

[lopburi3]

10 minutes ago, Oohwan said:

Thank you all for the suggestions many post have been extremely informative. 

 

Unfortunately the sender back in the U.S in not computer savvy, so I think all these online options wouldn't work.  

 

The sender is elderly and feels secure dealing with her bank face to face.  

 

Out of all these suggestions, is there a way for the sender to make a transfer directly with her bank face to face, into something I can set up myself here in Thailand? 

In that case make it easy for them and just have them set up an account to be used for your payments and send you an ATM card to make withdrawals.  Account can be in there name.

 

Other option is wire transfers (SWIFT) but there will be her bank change and another corespondent bank charge - if you use this make sure they send USD.  This could be made to any account here in Thailand.

Edited April 30, 2017 by lopburi3

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

15 minutes ago, Oohwan said:

Thank you all for the suggestions many post have been extremely informative. 

 

Unfortunately the sender back in the U.S in not computer savvy, so I think all these online options wouldn't work.  

 

The sender is elderly and feels secure dealing with her bank face to face.  

 

Out of all these suggestions, is there a way for the sender to make a transfer directly with her bank face to face, into something I can set up myself here in Thailand? 

 

Here's one approach:

 

You open an account in the same bank or CU as your sender. He/she can go to his/her local bank (face-to-face) and deposit the funds into your local account as he/she wishes. Then, once they're in your local account, you use their (hopefully) online banking capacity to ACH funds to BKK Bank New York.

 

That way, the funds are being ACH'd to and from an account with the same name -- your account on the U.S. end, and your same name account on the BKK Bank end.

 

That's going to be a better deal than any kind of traditional international wire transfer, where the sending fees are likely to be quite high -- especially if you're doing a monthly send.

 

Edited April 30, 2017 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

11 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

In that case make it easy for them and just have them set up an account to be used for your payments and send you an ATM card to make withdrawals.  Account can be in there name.

 

 

That works if the sender's account happens to be a no or very low foreign currency fee account (which probably is very unlikely). But if the sender happens to have his/her account at one of the major U.S. banks (much more likely) that typically charge a 3% foreign currency fee and doesn't reimburse Thai ATM fees, then it's going to be a very expensive card to use here.

 

Most domestic U.S. folks don't care or even pay any attention to the foreign currency fees at the banks they use, because they're not typically using the account/card abroad. But in the OP's case, and in the approach you're suggesting, a BofA or Well Fargo or Chase U.S. account and card used in Thailand, just as illustrative examples, would be VERY expensive.

 

Edited April 30, 2017 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Oohwan]

1 minute ago, lopburi3 said:

In that case make it easy for them and just have them set up an account to be used for your payments and send you an ATM card to make withdrawals.  Account can be in there name.

 

Other option is wire transfers (SWIFT) but there will be her bank change and another corespondent bank charge - if you use this make sure they send USD.

I also thought about having them send me an ATM.  Would there be any legal issues with them sending me the card?

 

I assume I would then have ATM fees, and international transaction fee imposed if I were to do it this way? 

 

I wonder if withdrawing the entire amount at once would be cheaper than the SWIFT.

 

SCB said they would charge a maximum of 500 baht for SWIFT.  

 

[lopburi3]

3% is a whole lot less than most people pay for local tax/VAT so it is really relative.  But yes a 1% card would save $40 per month.  But expect less work for sender might be worth it in worst case.

 

There is no problem sending cards (card sent by account holder) or using with permission.  SCB has nothing to do with SWIFT fee - that is your sending bank and a fee in large US bank that has direct contact with SCB.  What SCB (or any bank) would charge is the normal 1/4% fee.

[Oohwan]

19 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Here's one approach:

 

You open an account in the same bank or CU as your sender. He/she can go to his/her local bank (face-to-face) and deposit the funds into your local account as he/she wishes. Then, once they're in your local account, you use their (hopefully) online banking capacity to ACH funds to BKK Bank New York.

 

 

Is it possible for me to open a U.S bank account from Thailand? 

[lopburi3]

Just now, Oohwan said:

Is it possible for me to open a U.S bank account from Thailand? 

I you or family had military service it might open USAA but expect that may not be the case.  There are several other options mentioned recently (credit union type).  But most US banks, even if they would open, would want you there in person to sign general paperwork to allow for wire transfers.

[Oohwan]

28 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Here's one approach:

 

You open an account in the same bank or CU as your sender. He/she can go to his/her local bank (face-to-face) and deposit the funds into your local account as he/she wishes. Then, once they're in your local account, you use their (hopefully) online banking capacity to ACH funds to BKK Bank New York.

 

That way, the funds are being ACH'd to and from an account with the same name -- your account on the U.S. end, and your same name account on the BKK Bank end.

 

That's going to be a better deal than any kind of traditional international wire transfer, where the sending fees are likely to be quite high -- especially if you're doing a monthly send.

 

What if I tell the sender to open an account with BKK Bank New York, this is done online correct? Maybe I can do it for them, and then manage the BKK New York online banking account so I can transfer the funds to SCB which is under my name? 

[lopburi3]

Bangkok Bank New York does not have personal accounts - it is just used as an ACH address to make transfers to accounts held in Thailand Bangkok Bank accounts.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

12 minutes ago, Oohwan said:

Is it possible for me to open a U.S bank account from Thailand? 

Yes, lots of U.S. banks and credit unions (but not all) now allow entirely online account opening. Typically they'll ask for a U.S. DL and/or U.S passport number, and you'll need to have some kind of U.S. residence address that you can use that matches the one shown on your DL.

 

In some cases, they'll ask you to sign an account signature card. Rarely the ones that allow online account opening will want to postal mail that card. But more often in my experience, they're OK to send the card document as a PDF document via email. You sign it, scan it, and send it back via email.

 

Every bank or CU has their own particular account opening process. But online is becoming more and more common.

 

 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

Bangkok Bank New York does not have personal accounts - it is just used as an ACH address to make transfers to accounts held in Thailand Bangkok Bank accounts.

Yes, Lopburi is correct on this. The ONLY purpose the BKK Bank New York location serves is as a destination for you to send domestic ACH transfers to, en route to them arriving in your BKK Bank account in Thailand.

 

But you need to have a U.S. bank account that allows you to send (hopefully free) domestic U.S. ACH transfers. Any account that allows that will be OK for sending to BKK Bank NY. But as mentioned earlier, we're pretty sure the account names on the sending U.S. account and the receiving BKK Bank account need to be the same.

 

Edited April 30, 2017 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

20 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

3% is a whole lot less than most people pay for local tax/VAT so it is really relative.  But yes a 1% card would save $40 per month.  But expect less work for sender might be worth it in worst case.

 

There is no problem sending cards (card sent by account holder) or using with permission.  SCB has nothing to do with SWIFT fee - that is your sending bank and a fee in large US bank that has direct contact with SCB.  What SCB (or any bank) would charge is the normal 1/4% fee.

I'm really not sure what you're saying above.

 

How much someone pays in unnecessary bank transfer and ATM fees doesn't have much relation to what someone pays in tax/VAT.  The ATM and bank transfer fees can be avoided entirely and/or reimbursed if you handle it smartly. The local tax and VAT can't be avoided no matter what. There's really no connection.

 

As for the SWIFT fees (traditional international wire transfer method), most U.S. banks charge $35 to $60 per wire for international transfers. And the OP has discussed wanting to transfer funds on a monthly basis. And that's not including possible extra fees from intermediary banks.  The fact that SCB or any receiving bank on the Thai end only charges 0.25% (min 300 baht for SCB I believe) doesn't erase the very HIGH U.S. bank transfer fees.

 

That's why BKK Bank New York is almost always going to be a preferable route vs a traditional wire transfer.

 

[lopburi3]

1 minute ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

I'm really not sure what you're saying above.

 

How much someone pays in unnecessary bank transfer and ATM fees doesn't have much relation to what someone pays in tax/VAT.  The ATM and bank transfer fees can be avoided entirely and/or reimbursed if you handle it smartly. The local tax and VAT can't be avoided no matter what. There's really no connection.

 

As for the SWIFT fees (traditional international wire transfer method), most U.S. banks charge $35 to $60 per wire for international transfers. And the OP has discussed wanting to transfer funds on a monthly basis. And that's not including possible extra fees from intermediary banks.  The fact that SCB or any receiving bank on the Thai end only charges 0.25% (min 300 baht for SCB I believe) doesn't erase the very HIGH U.S. bank transfer fees.

 

That's why BKK Bank New York is almost always going to be a preferable route vs a traditional wire transfer.

 

My point was the amount involved would not that big an issue for most people - we are used to paying extra.  If this would help the older person I would encourage.  But perhaps I am just too protective of us older folk.  

[speedtripler]

21 hours ago, chingching said:

You could get a coinbase account in the u.s.a., and buy BTC or ETH by ACH.    I think the coinbase fee is 1.5%  
Or there would be multiple ways to buy btc or eth in the u.s.a.  Localbitcoins would be one.

You can then transfer those to an account in thailand.  bx.in.co,  is one,  or Localbitcoins

To transfer btc would cost about 1-2 dollars , time about 40 minutes,  

To transfer eth would cost about 6 cents and take about 15 minutes.

 

bx.in.co  charges 30 baht to transfer your baht to a thai bank,

 

Depending on mkt conditions you might even be able to sell your $2000   for more than $2000.
 

I regularly  use Bitcoin to move my money and find it very hasslefree with no currency conversion fees, it's also quite likely Bitcoin gains value if you hold it for awhile so you will likely get more $$$ than you spent on it...... 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

26 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

My point was the amount involved would not that big an issue for most people - we are used to paying extra.  If this would help the older person I would encourage.  But perhaps I am just too protective of us older folk.  

 

If you mean the cost of doing a traditional international wire transfer from the U.S., I'd consider let's say an average monthly cost of perhaps $50 to send a traditional wire every month (12 x $50) that totals $600 over the course of the year to be a pretty big issue -- especially when much of that expense can be avoided by using other transfer methods.

 

My suggestion of having the OP open an account at the same bank as his "sender" and then letting the sender do the face-to-face banking deposit, to use the OP's words earlier, into his account. And then him doing an online ACH transfer from there to BKK Bank New York is going to be vastly less expensive. And no real burden on the "sender".

 

And using the BKK Bank New York route, it really won't matter whether the "sender" and the OP's bank account has any foreign currency fees or not. Because as far as their local U.S. bank is concerned, all that's happening is a domestic U.S. ACH transfer to another U.S. bank. So the local bank's foreign currency fees never even come into the picture. And the end of the day, the OP is just withdrawing baht from his BKK Bank account.

 

Edited April 30, 2017 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[owl sees all]

The top three are:

 

Transferwise

Azimo

Currencyfair

 

Check them out and see how they measure up against the banksters.

[Oohwan]

46 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Yes, Lopburi is correct on this. The ONLY purpose the BKK Bank New York location serves is as a destination for you to send domestic ACH transfers to, en route to them arriving in your BKK Bank account in Thailand.

 

But you need to have a U.S. bank account that allows you to send (hopefully free) domestic U.S. ACH transfers. Any account that allows that will be OK for sending to BKK Bank NY. But as mentioned earlier, we're pretty sure the account names on the sending U.S. account and the receiving BKK Bank account need to be the same.

 

It sounds like the ACH transfers is the best option, unfortunately it is not going to work as the account name on the sending U.S. account, and the receiving BKK Bank account would not be the same. 

 

@TallGuyJohninBKK  Earlier you mentioned "Ideally, you want to me using a U.S. bank card that allows ATM withdrawals up to $1000 per day at least, and preferably, one that reimburses you for the Thai ATM fees and has no foreign currency fee of its own. Which brings us back to Schwab, Fidelity and a few others."

 

Would you please mention the few others?

 

I could have the sender open one of these accounts in person, or I could do it for them online from Thailand?  Then they can then send me the ATM card? 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

36 minutes ago, owl sees all said:

The top three are:

 

Transferwise

Azimo

Currencyfair

 

Check them out and see how they measure up against the banksters.

 

We've been down this road before, but people keep insisting on beating a dead horse with private xfer services.

 

To send $2000 U.S. to Thailand, BKK Bank's New York branch charges a $5 fee, and then BKK Bank on the receiving end would charge a 0.25% commission of a bit under $6 (200 baht).

 

By comparison, TransferWise has a $21.78 fee for sending $2000.

 

Also, MasterCard's current network exchange rate for THB is 34.586729, and VISA's network rate is usually a bit better. So not enough of a difference to make up for Transferwise's higher fee.

 

Edited April 30, 2017 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[bankruatsteve]

Another option is to write a USD check in the name of the recipient who then must have an account in Siam Commercial, Bangkok Bank, or Kasikorn with the exact same name in English.  This will cost 300 - 500 baht depending on the bank.  It will take between 40-60 days to process with exchange rate of 1% above bank rates (I think) determined when the deposit is completed.  If you have a monthly schedule for mailing a check the time it takes is irrelevant.  One caveat:   I have had problems with some of the up-country branches of these banks where the manager says "cannot" simply because he doesn't know how to process a check.  Otherwise, I have used this method for over 20 years at all 3 banks.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

2 minutes ago, Oohwan said:

It sounds like the ACH transfers is the best option, unfortunately it is not going to work as the account name on the sending U.S. account, and the receiving BKK Bank account would not be the same. 

 

@TallGuyJohninBKK  Earlier you mentioned "Ideally, you want to me using a U.S. bank card that allows ATM withdrawals up to $1000 per day at least, and preferably, one that reimburses you for the Thai ATM fees and has no foreign currency fee of its own. Which brings us back to Schwab, Fidelity and a few others."

 

Would you please mention the few others?

 

I could have the sender open one of these accounts in person, or I could do it for them online from Thailand?  Then they can then send me the ATM card? 

Oohwan, is there some reason you're not receptive to the idea of you opening a bank account at the same U.S. bank as your sender? And then the sender can easily deposit their funds to your local account each month. And then you can online do an ACH transfer to BKK Bank, and your sending local account and your BKK Bank account will have the same name.

 

That seems no extra work for the sender beyond what they're already doing, and easy for you to handle the rest.  If you're already in Thailand, you could explore opening an account online with your sender's bank. And if the bank won't allow that, you could plan to open the account the next time you're back in the U.S. for a visit.

 

But as to your specific question, Schwab is the gold standard for expat banking. Fidelity is similar, but has more potential complications as Jing explained above. State Farm Bank is another with no foreign currency fee and reimburses Thai ATM fees, especially if you have a direct deposit with them, more limited if you don't. But beyond those, you get into the world of local area banks and credit unions that I can't offer any advice to you on since I don't know your "local".

 

A Schwab account probably can be opened online from Thailand, if you have a U.S. residence address you can use where they would send you account info and debit card upon issuance. I'm not sure whether or not they ask for a DL with an address that matches your declared residence address. But if you do apply online from Thailand, make sure you're always using a VPN or similar method that gives your PC a U.S. IP address.