149 replies to this topic

[Spyder Rocket]

Bank Transfers:

One thing that I am still working out how to do is transferring money from a monthly pension to a Thai Bank.

Unfortunately, I can not set up with the source of my pension to deposit my monthly payments directly into a Thai bank.

I think that drawing money via ATMs in Thailand from a USA bank account would be a bit expensive with fees over the long run.

I also think that setting up a monthly international transfer would be unwise due to fees. What I am looking at doing is setting up a quarterly transfer of funds, but I haven't worked out the math on that to see what makes the most sense.

Does anyone have input or ideas to minimize fees over the long run?

[dixon cox]

This is something I gave initial thought towards too, having had a Kasikorn account for around 5 years already.

 

The bare facts are that I just factor the ATM and bank charges into my budget and whenever I visit my homeland I will bring a wad of cash back over with me (with bank receipt for proof). Carrying large sums of cash overseas from the UK requires proof of being genuine at border control if in excess of €10,000. I'm sure each country will have similar parameters in place, but I don't bring that much.

 

I do use ATM's to draw from my UK account and each withdrawal costs B150 + 2.5%, the actual exchange rates my bank imposes are quite reasonable. You can cut a little of the charges by maximising your withdrawal amount as the B150 is per withdrawal, of course the 2.5% is incurred on the total.

 

So if I take out B10k in two lots it would cost me £3 more (B150), as opposed to withdrawing B20,000 in one go, because I used the ATM machine twice for two withdrawals instead of one. It is only since returning from a short stay in the UK in August that I got my bank to maximise my daily ATM card withdrawal limit. 

 

In other words, ensure your home ATM card daily withdrawal limit is set to maximum and then calculate how much that is in Baht, allowing for some leeway. Then that is the amount your home ATM can deliver each day for B150 + your bank's percentage.

 

ATM machines in Thailand can only dispense a maximum of B20,000 in one go due to the thickness of 20x B1,000 notes. So even if your withdrawal limit was higher you could withdraw that amount, but you'd be charged an extra B150 each time, plus bank %. If you over do it there's a good chance the card will become locked.

 

I don't recall the exact costs of making a transfer from my UK bank account to Kasikorn Bank online, but the difference was not enough for me to worry about it. The convenience of using my UK ATM card outweighs the few Baht I might be able to save and I accommodate those costs into my budget. 

 

 

There are probably better ways of obtaining funds in Thailand from sources back home, so I too am interested to hear what others may have to say.

[Spyder Rocket]

I'll be looking into this a bit more and will be sure to post what I learn.

[rxpharm]

DC, good information, except for some clarification regarding the maximum amount of Baht that an ATM can dispense. ATMs can dispense up to 30k baht - the Aeon Bank ATMs used to be able to until mid 2013 now it is back to the usual 20k. The withdrawal limit is set by the local bank ATM policy - most Thai banks are 20k Baht, Bangkok Bank will dispense up to 25k Baht. It also depends on what your home bank maximum withdrawal limits are as well.

[azza33]

I think the problem with costs to access funds will depend on what banks offer in each country.

Here in Australia we have GE capital having a credit card with zero fees. All was needed was those aeon atms and basically cash was accessed at close to wholesale rates. Sadly, both aeon and ge look like they are changing from today. Was perfect to load up with cash begore a trip.

Ive found a product here called Cit Plus which claims to be fee free and free atm access to any citi atm worldwide. Zero interest on account funds but thats no issue for me. What i read points to excellent rates using atms.

It also offers free global transfers from citi to citi, but fine print suggested the cash conversion was done at the citi prevailing rates at point of origin. Not advantageous from what i can tell.

I agree with DC ... i usually take the bulk of my trip funding in cash and deposit in my kasikorn account which i opened at the Pattaya klang branch.

Ive done an over the counter withdrawal using passport and credit card and avoided Thai atm fees.

We have a fx mob here ozforex.com.au which is pretty cheap and free above certains levels for each currency. Ive yet to personally use them.

Quick read indicates US and UK may be able to use ozforex service.

[dixon cox]

ATMs can dispense up to 30k baht - the Aeon Bank ATMs used to be able to until mid 2013 now it is back to the usual 20k. The withdrawal limit is set by the local bank ATM policy - most Thai banks are 20k Baht, Bangkok Bank will dispense up to 25k Baht. It also depends on what your home bank maximum withdrawal limits are as well.

 
I've always been of the belief as I stated earlier, but very happy to be corrected. Maybe the remaining banks who weren't are now all changing to the B20k limit to assist in reducing fee avoidance by drawing out larger amounts per B150 fee.

 

Thanks Rx   
 
 

I think the problem with costs to access funds will depend on what banks offer in each country.

Ive done an over the counter withdrawal using passport and credit card and avoided Thai atm fees.

I cannot recall ever taking cash from an ATM using a credit card before as in all those I've ever had the interest begins being charged immediately (for the borrowing), plus the usual other transaction convertion and ATM fees still apply. I always use a debit card as the money is already mine. Of course there are many CC providers so yours may not be the same as mine, but as far as I know this is the common rule of thumb with CC's.

 

Using a credit card over the bank counter again is something I've never done. I guess if you go online and pay it off as soon as you can then the interest would be negligible and as you said, minus ATM fees.

 

I do have two credit cards which I have with me in Thailand, although they never see the light of day. I use them for online ticket purchases and online visa applications etc.. But always good to have a CC or two in reserve as a fall back should something else go wrong. Plus I never use up all my cash and keep some in reserve for special occasions too.

 

Both my credit cards, UK bank account and Kasikorn are all accessible online. Very important.

 

I posted about setting-up a Kasikorn account several years ago, for anyone who's interested - see here

[Spyder Rocket]

Does anyone know what type of fraud insurance is offered by Thai banks?

It seems that the main reason that the source of my pension can not deposit directly into a Thai account is because of the Thai banking system not meeting anti-fraud requirements.

I will certainly look into a Forex account as I think those are available in the US.

EDIT:

Forex is for currency speculation traders and is not a practical method for moving foreign income into Thailand.

[azza33]

Trick with the credit cards is you can load them with your own money.
So the cash advance was a withdrawal of your own funds. Nil interest. Nil currency conversion fees. Nil cash advance fee.
To circumvent this GE have introduced a 3% cash advance fee irrespective of whose cash you use.
Basically now killing off this method, however no currency conversion fees for purchases is still a good benefit.

Good deals are hard to find, so I'm hoping the Citi plus account turns out to be a good find.

Just an aside - PayPal comes in handy too. When booking Air Asia flights from Australia they will charge a $8 fee per flight leg for using a credit card. $16 saving by using the PayPal account to pay the tickets which amusingly sources the funds from the same credit card.

[Spyder Rocket]

I think a Foreign Currency Deposit account might be an option, but the information on the Kasikorn website is a little confusing. Some of those fees make it look unattractive too.

http://www.kasikornb...entAccount.aspx

EDIT:

An FCD account doesn't seem like a good option after reading that a webpage a couple of more times.

[Spyder Rocket]

Actually, this is the US equivalent of what Azza was talking about above. It seems like they offer fairly good conversion rates and the fees seem much lower than what a ATM withdrawal would be from my home bank.

You can even set up scheduled transfers and avoid the $ 5 (USD) fee by transferring amounts greater than 5000 USD.

I did see a reference to third party fees and I wonder if that is what would make this method unattractive. Supposedly, this "third-party" fee would/could be incurred at your destination Thai Bank. I am not entirely sure about that.

http://www.usforex.c.../transfer-money

This might be a cheaper option if you are able to make transfers on a quarterly basis.

[Spyder Rocket]

Trick with the credit cards is you can load them with your own money.
So the cash advance was a withdrawal of your own funds. Nil interest. Nil currency conversion fees. Nil cash advance fee.
To circumvent this GE have introduced a 3% cash advance fee irrespective of whose cash you use.
Basically now killing off this method, however no currency conversion fees for purchases is still a good benefit.

The "loadable" credit/debit cards in the US hit you with a fee when you load them, about 5USD. However, most of the US cards like that can't be used everywhere outside the US because of fraud and the fact that they are used to launder illicit streams of money.

I'd be sure to check for countries that are blocked, as Thailand was blocked by Greendot.

[azza33]

Found this useful info on Thai visa website.

Say you transfer 100000 baht, thai fees would be 250+100 plus international transfer fee.
If you did 200000 baht would be 500+200 and international transfer fee could drop to zero depending on source currency.

I guess the big savings would be if you did 1000000 plus at a time, total fees of 500+750. Good numbers if you live there permanently or spend large.

To transfer funds from overseas, the correspondent bank will charge the sender of funds; the charge rate will depend on the conditions of the correspondent bank. The beneficiary will also be charged by KASIKORNBANK on the rate of 0.25% of the transferred amount (minimum 200 Baht and maximum 500 Baht). Therefore if you want the beneficiary to receive the full amount of money, you should add some extra amount for the fee when you make the transaction.

To transfer money to branches outside Bangkok and vicinity, there will be additional fees, which are leased line fee of 20 Baht per transaction, and 10 Baht for each 10,000 Baht transferred (minimum 10 Baht and maximum 750 Baht).

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