How to use Paypal to transfer funds from the US

[jai-dee]

Krung Thai bank has a branch in LA

 

http://www.ktb.co.th/PublicApp/ktbweb/en/pid/0800000552

[limbo]

With Siam Commercial Bank no e-account is required and my Thai PayPal is al in English! No worries at all.

 

Would you mind explaining in a little detail just how you made your SCB account work with PayPal? For example' date=' do you have an SCB credit card or did you have to get some other special banking product or service from them?

 

Like many other people I've tried and failed to verify with PayPal using an SCB ATM card (a/k/a "SCB Debit Card" with a MasterCard logo and marked "Electronic Use Only") linked to a savings account. But if there's a way to make it work, I'd really appreciate knowing how and I'm sure others would, too.[/quote']

 

I've got a Bank of Ayudhaya cradit card for verifying and a SCB account. The credit card can be obtained with a frozen amount in your account, equal to your cc limit.

 

[limbo]

Limbo,

 

Is your Thai bank account a regular Thai Baht account? When you use PP to transfer funds to your Thai Bank account, who does the currency conversion into Thai Baht and is the rate the same as you would get if you brought cash in and converted it?

 

If I receive foreign funds, like USD or Euros, PP does the conversion for me and they use fair rates. The commission on Euros for PP is around 2% and in USD I'm not sure, but on a 4K USD transfer they only charged a 5,-USD commission!

[mongatu]

That sounds good Limbo! I wish you could tell me exactly how the rates compared to cash but from what you say it sounds like it may have been about the same. I'm always interested in getting the best electronic exchange rate as possible, so I'm definitely going to try this method on my next visit. I guess the $5 fee was based on a percentage or perhaps a percentage plus some minimum fee.

 

Anyway, so far since coming upon this thread the other day, I've have been successful in my efforts to get a Thai PP account set up and linked both to my BKK Bank "savings" account and one of my US bank accounts. :thumbup:

 

I have also finally been able to link my BKK Bank Visa Debit ATM card to the Thai PP account. The only reason I was having a problem before was because my old eyes didn't notice the last 4 digits of my card number that were faintly printed over the silver hologram on the card. Once I noticed my error and entered the full number of digits that were on the card, everything proceeded smoothly and now the two PP charges have been made on the card and I can see them online in my Thai account. Now I just have to wait for the transaction to "settle" (in another day or so I assume) and then I will be able to see the PP 4 digit merchant code on my online account and use that to confirm the card and I should be all set up and good to go.

 

I'm really looking forward to trying this out and seeing if I can get better exchange rates and fees than I can using my "no fee" US debit card in a Thai ATM when I get back to Thailand again in early June.

 

And, even if the conversion rate (plus fees) is not better than the ATM, it is still worthwhile to have another method of easily transferring US funds into my Thai account available and ready to go, just in case I were to lose my US ATM card or needed more funds quickly than the card's daily limits or some other problem like that.

[mongatu]

Thenacity: See my post above. My Thai debit card sounds exactly the same as yours except that it is Visa instead of MC. But it is also marked "electronic use only." Perhaps you are making the same error I originally did.

[Thenacity]

Thenacity: See my post above. My Thai debit card sounds exactly the same as yours except that it is Visa instead of MC. But it is also marked "electronic use only." Perhaps you are making the same error I originally did.

 

It seems the situation with the SCB Debit Card is quite different. All 16 digits are clearly written on the obverse of the card and the CCV is clear on the reverse, but it just won't work for any online usage.

 

I called the SCB service center number yesterday. They said the SCB Debit Card that accompanies a savings account cannot ever be used for online purchases (and by extension other online transactions such as PayPal verification). Also they clearly said there is no other SCB service or product which yields a debit card which is usable online.

 

Their only option for online transactions is an SCB credit card. To obtain one of those, as a foreigner, you must have an income of at least 100,000 baht per month and a proven 6-month history of deposits from the payroll of your current employer.

 

It may also be of use to someone to know that (in my case at least) there is nothing in the official records of my account that is written in English (or technically the Latin alphabet). It's all in Thai they say. I'm not sure whether this is because it is their standard practice on savings accounts, or whether because when opening the account I signed a blank application then handed over my work permit to let them fill in the address details.

 

With all this in mind, plus certain degradations of the SCB online banking interface after their latest "upgrade", I no longer feel SCB can be my bank of choice.

 

Bangkok Bank's Be1st card looks like it would be a good option for resolving the PayPal problem. But their Bualuang Banking online interface has a ridiculous "System Requirement" that the user has a Windows machine running Internet Explorer. I'd rather die, thank you. (But if anyone using Firefox, Safari or Opera for Mac has been able to use Bualauang online, please speak up!)

 

So, I think I will look into the K-bank K-web shopping card as soon as Songkran ends. I already have a K-bank savings account although it was opened many years ago. I hope I can open a new account and tie it to the card I already have or failing that just change the billing address on the existing account to match my current address. In any case it could all be resolved as quickly as this weekend, I hope.

 

Does anyone have a recommendation for a K-bank branch close to SkyTrain between Onnut and Siam where the staff speaks English at a good level?

 

This is a really impressive thread and forum, in general. It's good to see people taking the time to fill in the blanks and give specific details and procedures, unlike That Vexatious other forum which is so full of experts and yet so very short on actual expertise.

[Pom Michael]

Thenacity

 

K-Bank - corner of Soi 33 and Sukhumvit

 

Bangkok Bank - Sukhumvit at Soi 8

 

These are the best branches to deal with in my opinion.

[mongatu]

I was able to confirm my BKK Bank Be1st Visa Debit card in my PP account today.

 

I agree that BKK bank's online banking requiring internet explorer is a somewhat of a pain in the butt, since I usually use FF (and the BKK online banking won't even work with an IE window open within FF using the IE Tabs extension), but otherwise their system works pretty well (and going OT for a moment, I quite like my Windows based system :content: ).

 

On digging further into PayPal's currency conversion rates which would apply when withdrawing US dollars from a PP account to a Thai Baht Bank account, it appears that PayPal uses the MasterCard wholesale currency conversion rate (good ) plus a "spread" (fee) of 2.5% which PP keeps (bad) . This is somewhat disappointing because while my US MasterCard ATM debit card also uses the MasterCard wholesale conversion rate, they don't add any fees besides the standard MC fee of 1%. It is not clear whether PP's 2.5% "spread" is in addition to or whether it includes the standard MC 1% fee that MC adds to such transactions.

 

Note: All Visa and MasterCard debit cards use a wholesale conversion rate for foreign currency transactions, and most, if not all, of them add a fee of 1% on top of that, which they (not the issuing bank), keep. My US bank doesn't charge any additional fees on top of the 1% MC fee, but it should be noted that many US Banks do add an additional fee on top of that 1% MasterCard or Visa fee. So PP might not be a bad deal if its fees are equal to or less than the fees your particular bank might charge.

 

So, for me at least, it appears that using PP to transfer US funds to a Thai Bank isn't that great of a deal after all since it would cost 1.5% to 2.5% more (depending on whether PP's "spread" includes MC's 1% cut or not) than just using my ATM card.

 

Still, I think it's a good back up system to have in place.

[Thenacity]

K-bank on Sukhumvit at Soi 33 is very easy to deal with and I was able to get good service in English. The sign-up process for K-Cyber Banking took no more than 10 minutes. I was told the service would be ready in 2 days but it was ready in less than 24 hours.

 

The online sign-up for the K-web Shopping Card was also quick and easy. The only odd part is that when that's ready to go they don't send you an email; it just appears as another account feature so you have to remember to log in to K-Cyber Banking to check that it's been activated. I didn't do that so I can't tell you if it took 1 day or 3 days to be ready.

 

For most people the K-Cyber Banking service will be more convenient if you use the One-Time Password security scheme rather than the PIN2. There are some account features that you can use immediately with OTP but that you have to go to a branch or at least fax a signed form if using PIN2.

 

But if you choose OTP you should keep in mind that you must have a Thai mobile phone and if you are banking from abroad it must have roaming of some sort enabled so you can actually get the OTPs by SMS. If you change your Thai mobile number when using OTP you must visit a bank branch or fax a signed form to change the phone number associated with your account.

 

A test transfer using K-Cyber from my K-bank account to my Siam Commercial Bank account went through in less than two seconds. There are about 5 banks to which funds can be transfered to instantly for a nominal fee during banking hours.

 

Although the K-Cyber site doesn't make it perfectly plain, the K-web Shopping Card is a Visa product. The expiration date on the card is 2 years from the month and date of sign-up. A 3-digit CVV is given as well.

 

And the darn thing does work but it seems a little slow on the back end. That is, the transaction details don't show up in the K-Cyber system for 3 business days. Then again I've had a few people tell me this is standard with their Farangland Bank credit cards and online accounts, too.

 

Obviously this slow things down when verifying a new PayPal account, but you will eventually get the 4-digit code you need to do that. PayPal does caution against calling the card issuer unnecessarily to get the transaction details; it seems it can get the transaction flagged and the PayPal account closed, so just wait it out.

 

All in all it's an easy process that just requires a little patience. K-Cyber Banking is probably the best banking service I've ever seen in Thailand. The interface is stable, easy to navigate, Mac-friendly and the English is competent. The K-web Shopping Card is just as good as any plastic card for shopping online and the other Thai banks should be ashamed to not have something similar.

[rookie]

Interesting thread!

 

Something I didn't see mentioned in the thread is if the Thai bank receiving the funds from _Thai_ PayPal ....list the funds as having been transferred from outside Thailand??

 

This would be a consideration for those doing the annual renewal on their retirement (OA) visa. If one is using funds in a Thai bank to verify they have the requisite 800,000-Bt, Immigration requires that the funds came from outside Thailand. Account bankbooks note if deposits were 'foreign remittance or Swift deposits'.

 

Has anyone having done a Thai-PP to Thai bank xfer looked at the deposit code in their bankbook?