#  >  > Living And Legal Affairs In Thailand >  >  > Doing Things Legally >  >  What's the best way to transfer money to Thailand.

## daox

hello all i need to take money from uk to thailand to kick off a housing project i have been planning what is the safest and easiest way to bring a large sum over maybe 15k for starters any help greatly recived 

thx

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## dirtydog

Stick it in your wallet? Or just bank to bank transfer, you aint talking great amounts of money here.

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## JoGeAr

Confusing thread title! Should it be "How to..?

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## oldgit

I did as DD advised, and brought it fifty pound notes in a passport holder with pockets, worn around the neck and inside my shirt,or you could put half of it in your other half's handbag ,as she has her gold in there, and  she will never let go of it, but make sure the notes are not torn as the bank would not accept them.

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## Bluecat

> i need to take money from uk to thailand to kick off a housing project


Sounds promising... :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):

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## Carnwadrick

Leave it in your bank in the UK and tell them you will be travelling in Thailand so they don't shut off your ATM card then use the card to withdraw the money daily, your bank will think you are fu****g yourself to death

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## Spin

Send a CHAPS payment from the uk to the account in Thailand.

You MUST send the money in sterling and the bank in Thailand will transfer into baht. You will get a better exchange rate that way.

If you dont have an account in Thailand, you can sent the money to my account, here are the details :Smile: 

acc num 831-3432-7765
SCB bank Khon Kaen
Swift code: SCBHIKO

 :Smile:  Cheers

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## kingwilly

suitcase. it's only 15,000 pounds fer fcks sake.

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## Gerbil

> If you dont have an account in Thailand, you can sent the money to my account, here are the details acc num 831-3432-7765 SCB bank Khon Kaen Swift code: SCBHIKO


My mate in Nigeria thanks you for that info.  :bunny3:

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## smeden

go to thailand open a bank acaunt in your own name and telefone your bank in uk give them the swif code and the acaunt number  and tellthem to transfer the money in sterling  u get better rate whith electronic transfer than cash

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## Luckydog

Open a UK Nationwide Flex account. Get a debit card from them and withdraw it in Thailand ATMs at 20000bht a day without any charges.

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## Carnwadrick

^ hey that's what I said!! what's the difference between a "debit" card and a "ATM" why do you guys in the UK like to be different from us Mericans :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):

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## ch1ldofthemoon

^ we are different....English are special! :St George:

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## Carnwadrick

^I'm a Scot transplant in America so I know how "special/Different"  you English are LOL

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## rtwo

> Send a CHAPS payment from the uk to the account in Thailand. You MUST send the money in sterling and the bank in Thailand will transfer into baht. You will get a better exchange rate that way.


By far the best way IMHO and definitely the safest but notice what is said, you MUST have the money sent to Thailand in Sterling. 
Large envelopes full of cash?? Why take the risk??
Provided you use one of the large clearers in UK and one of the main banks here in Thailand you should have no problems. (I've done it for nearly 30 years without the slightest difficulty).The UK bank will probably want to take a photostat of your passport, ask you where the money came from and what you're going to do with it. If you do go down the cash road, attempt to take more than £10,000 out as cash at any one time and your account will be 'flagged' by the bank for further scrutiny and you won't even know it 'caus they don't tell you! (all this is to do with recent EU money laundering legislation). You can complain but you'll get nowhere, if the bank is found by HMRC to have failed to have carried out the checks they can be fined huge amounts and they've tightened up considerably over the past couple of years. You'd be surprised how many UK bank accounts are being monitored for 'unusual' transactions including all accounts banking largish amounts of cash.
Another option is to use large denomination, sterling, travellers cheques. You'll get a slightly lower rate than using CHAPS and depending on what you think is going to happen to the currencies, if you time it right, you can be better off. Anything more than £10,000 though and you'll still have jump through the hoops.

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## blackgang

What I do if I need a bit of cash.
I have a SCB savings account, have had it since I came here, also have a DEBIT/ATM card on my US bank.
I go into my SCB bank and give the girl the Debit card and tell her how much money I want to transfer into my SCB account.
She runs the Visa Debit card thru the imprint machine and I sign the slip, then in about 1 minute after she makes the phone call, the money is in my SCB account, She runs my passbook thru the machine and it is registered,,I can draw at the ATM or across the counter.
The transaction costs me 30 baht.

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## DrAndy

Transferring money to Thailand is easy; as said above, your bank in the Uk will send the money to your account in Thailand

you get the best exchange rate like that too

however, if you don't have a bank account, you can use any of the other methods, but an ATM card (Nationwide is tops) or travellers cheques are the best

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## blackgang

Very simple doing it with a Debit/Atm card as CIRRUS is everywhere and it actually just goes from one account to another in that system.

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## buad hai

What blackgang is describing is called a "point of sale" transfer because they generally do it with a point of sale type card reading machine.

I've tried to get Bangkok Bank to do this and they look at me as if I'd just arrived from the moon. I gave up.

When I bought a car (about US$15,000) I just started withdrawing the maximum every day from my US accounts at ATM machines. Then I used the cash deposit machines to put the money into my Bangkok Bank account. This cost nothing, but took nearly a month of daily withdrawals. 

This is what I do now for my normal daily expenses so that I'll have a Thai bank book with lots of activity to show Immigration next time I get an extension. Withdraw cash from an ATM, deposit cash at a cash deposit machine, go back to the ATM and withdraw cash....

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## good2bhappy

I thought the banks in the UK got interested in sums greater than 7K?

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## blackgang

I have never had a problem with it, I just give the girl my passbook and my debit card and tell her I want to transfer XXX dollars to the thai account.
sometimes they charge me 20 or 30 baht and sometimes no charge.

But then I do the same thing with the account that you do, lots of small withdraws. makes immigration happy.

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## daox

many thanks to all the replies i do have a bank account in thailand so it would seem a transfer from my uk bank to thai account would be best i look forward to posting pics etc in the house build section when it all starts and thanks all again  :St George:

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## blackgang

OK, Yea and when they do the transfer for you then it is in your passbook as an out of country transfer, so Immigration likes that.

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## Loombucket

I have a bank account here in LOS. Before I come over I do a telex transfer, in sterling, from England to Thailand. That way, it saves having to carry much. Some banks will transfer by fax, if you are in LOS already. Mine did the first time. If you have the SWIFT Code of your destination bank, it's easy. If you are in England and you don't have a destination bank in LOS, any of the other suggestions given above are just as good. Personally, I would not carry that ammount of cash but the choice is yours.

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## ch1ldofthemoon

The maximum cash you can take out of the UK (or any other EU country) is 10,000 Euros, without incurring the wrath of the authorities

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## chinthee

^Not if you're a client of Barclays International.  :Smile:

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## Spin

> The maximum cash you can take out of the UK (or any other EU country) is 10,000 Euros, without incurring the wrath of the authorities


Not true, you can take out more buy you need to declare it via a cash declaration form.

more here

cash declaration form

Obviously, if the cash is a little "too hot to handle" then you wont be completing these forms in a hurry :Smile:

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## paulspad2002

is it actually hard to get a bank account in thailand as id like to also have one as i have a labour company that hires foreign immigrants from there and for my companies services in providing work and accomodations we charge a fee...not much considering after talking with a thai girl yesterday in my home town in new zealand i discovered that even thai agencies are charging up to $10k nzd per person....i was shocked....my charge is less than $700 and for that i arrange all the work while they are here and somewhere to stay which they pay for weekly... :cmn:

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## Thetyim

^
I have never had any problems opening a savings account and getting a visa/ATM card.

However I have a friend living in Nakhon Si Thammarat and it is impossible for a farang to open an account there.

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## Texpat

I've heard that too. 

I opened an interest-bearing, _individual_ account while here on vacation in 2001 with just my passport.

Other farangs seem to get the shaft.

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## Propagator

Same here 3 banks that I have tried in Loei have given me the flat no no

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## Timber

Is there a way to do this just using bank #'s, I'm waiting for a new card from my american bank (my other one exploded, taking 3 of my fingers, due to overuse - or maybe I lost it, cant remember) but I have a thai bank that takes 7 days to receive money transfers from overseas. This is causing considerable pains in my ass region.  Thanks for the help. 





> What I do if I need a bit of cash. I have a SCB savings account, have had it since I came here, also have a DEBIT/ATM card on my US bank. I go into my SCB bank and give the girl the Debit card and tell her how much money I want to transfer into my SCB account. She runs the Visa Debit card thru the imprint machine and I sign the slip, then in about 1 minute after she makes the phone call, the money is in my SCB account, She runs my passbook thru the machine and it is registered,,I can draw at the ATM or across the counter. The transaction costs me 30 baht.

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## DrAndy

so what? they may ask you why you need to transfer the cash

the Thais also will ask

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## ch1ldofthemoon

....while I was in Chiang Mai in January,my local branch of Bangkok Bank asked me if I`d like to open an account. Stupidly,I said no,as I had my money in TT`s. When I`m back in June,I think I`ll take there offer up(if it`s still available).

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## deathstardan

> hello all i need to take money from uk to thailand to kick off a housing project i have been planning what is the safest and easiest way to bring a large sum over maybe 15k for starters any help greatly recived 
> 
> thx


 Don't.....Tell Tirak she can't have a new house, you're going on the piss.

Or just use your ATM card...Good Luck. :Smile:

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## jizzybloke

Anyone know if i can open an account at the BangkokBank's branch in London, looked on the website but can't find anything usefull and i don't want to go just to be told no as it's a pain in the arse driving and parking around there?

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## William

^the last time I looked into, Bangkok Bank in LDN did not have account holders.  It only acted as an agent bank.  This could have changed, but I'd certainly give them a call first

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## jizzybloke

^thanks William,
I'm sure they'll know for sure when i call them :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):

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## Terry SG

I tried to transfer money to my US citibank account at the branch on Sathorn and the manager said that they cannot contact US citibanks - I would have to use a wire transfer

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