Bangkok Bank transfers from London changed

[fcgprg]

1 minute ago, brling said:

 Is the registration only required for Bacs transfers, and not needed for Swift ?

I was told by Bangkok Bank London everyone needs to register.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

On 7/22/2017 at 1:07 AM, perthperson said:

Not if the foreign currency is £ or US$  transferred via the BKB in London or NYC..........

Actually, yes, Bangkok Bank in Thailand does charge the same commission on incoming international transfer funds, regardless of whether it's a traditional SWIFT or routed via their NY Branch in the U.S.

 

The inside Thailand charge by the bank is 0.25%, minimum 200 baht and maximum 500 baht, based on the amount sent. (The NY branch has it's own sliding scale flat fee that is an additional charge).

 

 

[Eff1n2ret]

17 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Actually, yes, Bangkok Bank in Thailand does charge the same commission on incoming international transfer funds, regardless of whether it's a traditional SWIFT or routed via their NY Branch in the U.S.

 

The inside Thailand charge by the bank is 0.25%, minimum 200 baht and maximum 500 baht, based on the amount sent. (The NY branch has it's own sliding scale flat fee that is an additional charge).

 

 

They are more competitive than Kasikorn, who recently charged me more than 1200Baht on an inward transfer of 420k Baht.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

On 8/2/2017 at 8:11 PM, fcgprg said:

No address needed, on line transfer from my UK Bank to Bangkok Bank in London who forward it to your Bangkok Bank in Thailand. The Bangkok Bank in London is only a clearing bank they do not hold accounts. That is what they told me when I started using them 5 years ago. The Bangkok bank website explains everything.

 

I've tried to read this whole thread, and the experience that fcgprg recounts above highlights what seems to be some confusion and mixup in this thread that hasn't been clearly resolved.

 

From what I've read here of BKK Bank's London setup and from what I know from direct experience of BKK Bank's New York setup, they have TWO different transfer methods going on:

 

1. is just a regular on-demand international funds transfer where you send your funds from your home bank in the U.S. or UK to their branch in New York or London, respectively, and they those branches send the funds onward to Thailand. At least in the case of the BKKB New York branch, it can only be to a BKKB branch in Thailand (not any other Thai bank).

 

2. and then there is a separate process for setting up automated direct deposits of people's U.S. or UK pension or similar monthly payments, where those end up getting direct deposited into your BKK Bank account in Thailand. AFAIK, there's a whole different paperwork process required to set up those kinds of transfers in the beginning.

 

The OP in this thread made it sound like the onerous identity requirements he heard about from the London branch were being applied to ALL of their international transfers. But fcgprg's experience above certainly makes it sound like no onerous authentication requirements are being imposed on the normal #1 type BKK Bank intl transfers.

 

And I can only add to that, AFAIK, there is no similar kind of documents/identity confirmation process required for making type #1 transfers thru Bangkok Bank's New York branch to any of their local Thai branches. There's a trial deposits method used for the first first setup, where two small credits of a few cents get put into your Thai BKK Bank account, and you have to enter those amounts into the online banking account of your sending account to confirm the link. But that's a U.S. banking process for what are called domestic ACH transfers, not any special thing required by Bangkok Bank.

 

 

[sandmonster]

After reading this thread, I started researching other ways to send funds to Thailand from the UK. I have now used Transferwise from the UK twice and both times seamless and perfect. Cost wise, blows away any other way.  All required ID checks were automatically done online in seconds at registration. Can't recommend it highly enough. All regulated and ring fenced by the FCA, so as safe as any bank.  Some big names behind this venture including Peter Thiel, co-counder of Papal. Love it when a disrupter comes along and smashes the traditional greedy banks.

 

 

 

[fcgprg]

19 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

I've tried to read this whole thread, and the experience that fcgprg recounts above highlights what seems to be some confusion and mixup in this thread that hasn't been clearly resolved.

 

From what I've read here of BKK Bank's London setup and from what I know from direct experience of BKK Bank's New York setup, they have TWO different transfer methods going on:

 

1. is just a regular on-demand international funds transfer where you send your funds from your home bank in the U.S. or UK to their branch in New York or London, respectively, and they those branches send the funds onward to Thailand. At least in the case of the BKKB New York branch, it can only be to a BKKB branch in Thailand (not any other Thai bank).

 

2. and then there is a separate process for setting up automated direct deposits of people's U.S. or UK pension or similar monthly payments, where those end up getting direct deposited into your BKK Bank account in Thailand. AFAIK, there's a whole different paperwork process required to set up those kinds of transfers in the beginning.

 

The OP in this thread made it sound like the onerous identity requirements he heard about from the London branch were being applied to ALL of their international transfers. But fcgprg's experience above certainly makes it sound like no onerous authentication requirements are being imposed on the normal #1 type BKK Bank intl transfers.

 

And I can only add to that, AFAIK, there is no similar kind of documents/identity confirmation process required for making type #1 transfers thru Bangkok Bank's New York branch to any of their local Thai branches. There's a trial deposits method used for the first first setup, where two small credits of a few cents get put into your Thai BKK Bank account, and you have to enter those amounts into the online banking account of your sending account to confirm the link. But that's a U.S. banking process for what are called domestic ACH transfers, not any special thing required by Bangkok Bank.

 

 

The only difference I have now if or when I transfer funds again is the unique 18 digit reference number which Bangkok Bank London sent by mail.Transferwise is also a good way to transfer funds and a fraction of the cost.

[fcgprg]

18 hours ago, sandmonster said:

After reading this thread, I started researching other ways to send funds to Thailand from the UK. I have now used Transferwise from the UK twice and both times seamless and perfect. Cost wise, blows away any other way.  All required ID checks were automatically done online in seconds at registration. Can't recommend it highly enough. All regulated and ring fenced by the FCA, so as safe as any bank.  Some big names behind this venture including Peter Thiel, co-counder of Papal. Love it when a disrupter comes along and smashes the traditional greedy banks.

 

 

 

I confirm that very good service.

[Oxx]

20 hours ago, sandmonster said:

Transferwise... All regulated and ring fenced by the FCA, so as safe as any bank.

 

Yet from the FCA website, "It cannot be determined if FSCS cover would apply to this firm.".

 

https://register.fca.org.uk/ShPo_FirmDetailsPage?id=001b000001EjC6SAAV

 

Yet do a similar search for Barclays and you get "The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) may be able to compensate customers if this firm fails".

 

So, not really "as safe as any bank".

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

On 9/12/2017 at 0:05 PM, Eff1n2ret said:

They are more competitive than Kasikorn, who recently charged me more than 1200Baht on an inward transfer of 420k Baht.

 

The 0.25% commission on incoming international bank transfers is, AFAIK, pretty common and standard among the different Thai banks. But that commission also usually has lower and upper limits of 200 and 500 baht or so, and that may vary a bit among the different banking companies.

 

That's the normal fee that the receiving Thai bank charges against incoming international wire transfers like SWIFT transfers.  But there also may be fees charged by the sending bank and possibly also by an intermediary/corresponding bank if one gets involved.

 

Did you ask Kasikorn to give you the detail/breakdown of just how the 1200b in fees were calculated and what entities were charging them?

 

[Eff1n2ret]

13 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Did you ask Kasikorn to give you the detail/breakdown of just how the 1200b in fees were calculated and what entities were charging them?

No, I tried on a previous occasion when they charged about 650 baht on a transfer of about 250k, and got a brick wall. Prior to that, their charges were always less than 300 baht.

Having recently re-activated an old Bangkok Bank account and put some money into it, I must say I was impressed that the transfer was lightning quick - paid in the day after transmission by OFX from UK whereas via Kasikorn it's never been less than 3 or 4 days, and 500 baht fee.

I'll probably continue using Kasikorn for day-to-day banking, but maybe make UK transfers into the BKK account and then across to Kasikorn, avoiding their rapacious international office in Bangkok.

PS - OFX make no charge for transfers, and their exchange rate competes with Transferwise or other such companies, and is better than First Direct, who now also offer an online international transfer facility. There's no charge for my transfers from First Direct to OFX.

Edited September 14, 2017 by Eff1n2ret

[SunsetT]

On 14/09/2017 at 2:42 AM, Eff1n2ret said:

No, I tried on a previous occasion when they charged about 650 baht on a transfer of about 250k, and got a brick wall. Prior to that, their charges were always less than 300 baht.

Having recently re-activated an old Bangkok Bank account and put some money into it, I must say I was impressed that the transfer was lightning quick - paid in the day after transmission by OFX from UK whereas via Kasikorn it's never been less than 3 or 4 days, and 500 baht fee.

I'll probably continue using Kasikorn for day-to-day banking, but maybe make UK transfers into the BKK account and then across to Kasikorn, avoiding their rapacious international office in Bangkok.

PS - OFX make no charge for transfers, and their exchange rate competes with Transferwise or other such companies, and is better than First Direct, who now also offer an online international transfer facility. There's no charge for my transfers from First Direct to OFX.

I use Transferwise to transfer  £1k amounts and have never been charged anything by Kasikorn bank who receive it into my ordinary savings account. The statement says transfer is from a 'Dummy' branch so I dont know whats going on there.....Dont care either.......lol.

[SunsetT]

On 14/09/2017 at 2:42 AM, Eff1n2ret said:

No, I tried on a previous occasion when they charged about 650 baht on a transfer of about 250k, and got a brick wall. Prior to that, their charges were always less than 300 baht.

Having recently re-activated an old Bangkok Bank account and put some money into it, I must say I was impressed that the transfer was lightning quick - paid in the day after transmission by OFX from UK whereas via Kasikorn it's never been less than 3 or 4 days, and 500 baht fee.

I'll probably continue using Kasikorn for day-to-day banking, but maybe make UK transfers into the BKK account and then across to Kasikorn, avoiding their rapacious international office in Bangkok.

PS - OFX make no charge for transfers, and their exchange rate competes with Transferwise or other such companies, and is better than First Direct, who now also offer an online international transfer facility. There's no charge for my transfers from First Direct to OFX.

The only time I was charged 650thb on a £1k transfer was using Xe.com. I only used them once because not until after sending did their transfer confirmation email warn that there may be further charges from the receiving or intermediary banks and sure enough there was! This leads me to think  they are well aware of the  higher charge for their transfers by, I suspect, the imtermediary bank that they use, and instead of charging for this up front, they can advertise their transfers as free and blame the higher charges on the receiving Thai bank. I had this problem with Nationwide Swift transfers many years ago when I first sent money to my 'tierak' in Thailand. They blamed the receiving Bangkok bank so I actually went with the missus to the receiving branch when I arrived in Thailand. They produced their paperwork showing only a 200thb charge and let me speak by phone to the international transfers head honcho in BB Bangkok head  office. She spoke excellent English and was adamant that there are no other charges made by them when they process the incoming transfers. So the extra charges for the 2 transfers must have been from HSBC and Midland Banks who were named on BB's paperwork as sending the money to them on behalf of Nationwide. Nationwide denied any knowledge of this but did eventually refund the fees to me.

[briley]

Anyone tried Ulster Bank?

 

Their savings account pays 1.25% and a standard transfer is £0 with a 2-4 days time scale. Their Fx rate was OK, 43.74 against Bangkok bank at 44.1 but they will send as sterling. All can be done online.

[Eff1n2ret]

2 hours ago, briley said:

Anyone tried Ulster Bank?

 

Their savings account pays 1.25% and a standard transfer is £0 with a 2-4 days time scale. Their Fx rate was OK, 43.74 against Bangkok bank at 44.1 but they will send as sterling. All can be done online.

Interesting, but unless you're a UK resident it's no longer possible to go shopping for new bank accounts in the UK. I assume this would apply to Northern Ireland?

[topt]

On ‎15‎/‎09‎/‎2017 at 3:33 PM, SunsetT said:

I use Transferwise to transfer  £1k amounts and have never been charged anything by Kasikorn bank who receive it into my ordinary savings account.

Because my understanding is they transfer in local currency from a local account - you agree the rate prior to the transfer going ahead.

 

On ‎15‎/‎09‎/‎2017 at 3:59 PM, SunsetT said:

The only time I was charged 650thb on a £1k transfer was using Xe.com

As TallGuyJohninBkk mentions above this is all to do with where the bank has to route the £ (in this instance) to get it into the specific Thai bank account. I would say you were very fortunate to only be charged 650 baht as it can often be a much larger standard amount no matter how much you transfer. Unfortunately this is never communicated well and often the bank staff you deal with cannot give you the relevant answers as they simply do not know.

 

It comes up often here and hopefully it is catching less people out if they do some research beforehand.

[briley]

4 hours ago, Eff1n2ret said:

Interesting, but unless you're a UK resident it's no longer possible to go shopping for new bank accounts in the UK. I assume this would apply to Northern Ireland?

Correct, you need to be a UK resident - or at least have an address. They ID'ed me using passport and a credit card number.

[pontious]

This started in July - still waiting for new T and C, to be posted on the Bangkok Bank website.! I will stick to TSB 17.50  pounds for any amount. It takes 4 working days but I am in no hurry.

[007 RED]

I have been transferring funds on a regular basis from my account in the UK to BB in BKK for 6 years plus.   Having today discovered through TV that BB that they now require registration to facilitate such transfers I contacted BB London by email with a couple of questions.

 

The following reply came back within 10 minutes.

 

Dear 007 RED

Thank you for your email.  I can see from our records that you are a long-term customer and have been sending funds from the same UK account for a few years. 

Therefore, provided you do not change that account, you do not need to register.

If you change the UK account that the funds are coming from, then you will need to register.

Regards

 

Christine Cownley

Admin. Officer

Customer Service

Bangkok Bank Pcl.

33 St. Mary Axe

London EC3A 8BY

 

Tel: +44 (0)207 929 4422 Ext. 2214

Fax: +44 (0)207283 3988

www.bangkokbank.com

 

A follow up email arrived 20 minutes later stating that they may ask for proof of ID and address etc. in the future, but at the moment they are concentrating of new customers

[pontious]

I still do not understand why they cannot publish the procedure. It has been months and still people have to ask the new procedure on an individual basis. It is  crazy.

[Here It Is]

1 minute ago, pontious said:

I still do not understand why they cannot publish the procedure. It has been months and still people have to ask the new procedure on an individual basis. It is  crazy.

Don't waste your time.  Get an f/x account and be done with it.  You'll never look back.

[OJAS]

On 11/17/2017 at 9:11 PM, pontious said:

I still do not understand why they cannot publish the procedure. It has been months and still people have to ask the new procedure on an individual basis. It is  crazy.

And, 9 months further on, they are presumably still cogitating the new procedure. Makes me wonder, therefore, whether BKKB's London branch are now seriously considering withdrawing the facility entirely - even for existing users - just as their New York branch appear to be doing from 1 April 2019:-