I hope someone can clarify this please.  I noticed there was a past discussion regarding the suitability of other banks' cards for payment of the UK Passport Renewal fee and that the cards must be suitable for online payments, if they are to be used successfully for the purpose of the passport renewal.

 

I have a Bangkok Bank Be1st debit card with magnetic stripe.  I note that on the Bangkok Bank website, for the page which covers the Be1st card product, " You can also make secure online purchases using your Be1st Visa Debit card with Bualuang iPay which provides an extra level of security by using a password inquiry system – reducing the risk of someone fraudulently using your card to make online purchases. "

 

My feeling is that this indicates that online purchases can be made using this special password facility, and furthermore it would possibly appear to be incompatible with the method of charging used for British passport renewals.  Has anyone else used this card please?

 

It may be helpful to note that I have made a payment via eBay, using this card number and it appears to have been successful.  I have not specifically signed up for anything special with this card.  Thanks.

I hope it's ok to bump this post, and perhaps simplify the question.  Essentially, I wondered if anyone applied and successfully paid for a UK passport renewal with the Bangkok Bank debit card, known as Be1st, as there appeared to be a number of earlier topics in regard to the use of Thai bank debit cards, although I didn't see anything in regard to Bangkok Bank's.  Thanks.

I couldn't say whether you can use a Thai Debit card to make a purchase in the UK, which is effectively what you're asking. Both my UK debit and credit cards are registered with the 'Verify by Visa' scheme, i.e. the extra password system which your card has, but that doesn't mean they can't be used for online purchases where the retailer doesn't use 'Verify by Visa'. Having said that, I've never tried to use my UK debit card for purchases outside the UK, so I can't say for sure whether you could do that the other way round.

 

You say you've used it online to buy from ebay so you might be ok. Why don't you make a test purchase from Amazon UK, something like a book which will ship easily in the post and customs don't bother with? If that works then you can be sure that you'll be ok with it for your passport application.

Many thanks, yes that's an option.  I don't know what charging method is used by the UK passport authority though.  They won't physically have the applicant's debit card to swipe, so presumably it's an banking transaction.

7 hours ago, sicky said:

Many thanks, yes that's an option.  I don't know what charging method is used by the UK passport authority though.  They won't physically have the applicant's debit card to swipe, so presumably it's an banking transaction.

Email the passport application centre........they reply very quickly...........problem solved