tonymaroni wrote:Just went to the Siam Comm. Bank in the shopping mall. Was denied ability to open a savings acct. She said I need a 'Yellow Book'
What do you think?
I think she may have been right as you were asking to open a 'residents' savings account which, according to Bank of Thailand's guidelines over recent years to prevent Baht speculation, requires certain documentation. In practice commercial banks do allow us to open accounts (and thereby obtain the benefits that go with them) by showing minimal documentation. As she said the manager was not there (think it may need his sign off), go to another bank or go back when he is there, I opened an account in that branch with minimal docs.
Prcscct wrote:There's just something in my head after seeing time and time again all the nonsense that goes on here, that a Thai bank could one morning simply say, we're not here (for you) anymore. No guarantees, no insurance etc. I trust Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore in this part of the world but not Thailand.
Fear not Pete … I
believe our funds in Thai banks are fully guaranteed/insured by this government appointed Deposit Protection Agency, so in event of a bank failing we are currently covered for a minimum 50M Baht per commercial bank, ie: if you have 50M in a SCB account, another 50M in a Bangkok Bank account and ditto a Kasikorn account, you get the full 150M back.
Like other countries this amount reduces in the next few years as the financial crisis supposedly lessens, when it does Thailand's insured amount (based on GDP/capita) will still be the highest in Asia, about 1,700% higher than HK/Singapore and 350% than in the US and will fully cover 98.5% of the populations bank accounts. This is not a right for most of us but a benefit granted to us by the commerical banks allowing us to resident accounts.
They dont pay much interest to farangs compared to Thais
The government/Bank of Thailand has no two-tier interest rates for Thais and farangs, and do not advise the commercial banks to practice this. So any difference in rates are down to the commercial bank. I've read they were doing this in the years after the 1997 crash but do they do it now?? I've always had interest paid by BKK, Kasikorn and SCB on basic savings accounts at the same rates as Thais, ditto a Kasikorn fixed-deposit account, just checked the books and all these were pre-getting me getting WP and 'B' visa, so was just on an 'O'.
There's confusion when we look at the banks website rates and on the far right it says 'non-residents 0%', but these aren't the accounts we open, these 'Non-Resident Baht Accounts' are something especially set up by the BoT re: the Baht speculation issue. Do any of you have the basic saving account book that does not show interest added every 6 months or whenever ??
SJ
