Palatkik Posted February 21, 2007 Report Share Posted February 21, 2007 Curious, my US Citicard seems to use offshore rates at most ATM's in Thailand these days of around 33B/USD. If I wire USD from th US to a Thai account can I expect to get it converted to baht at the onshore rates of over 35B/USD? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavanami Posted February 21, 2007 Report Share Posted February 21, 2007 From what I understand, the US bank will wire xfr USD to the Thai bank. The Thai bank will convert to Thai Baht. Best to check with the bank on the Thai side to see what rate they will give you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elef Posted February 21, 2007 Report Share Posted February 21, 2007 Nope, you instruct the bank if you want to send USD or any other currency (including THB) to the thai bank. The most favourable is to send down USD normally and you'll get 35.5 today Bangkok Bank minus a fee of 300-350 baht. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evel_Penivel Posted February 21, 2007 Report Share Posted February 21, 2007 If your ATM card is issued through the MasterCard (Cirrus) network, you'll get the offshore rate. Visa cards (Plus network) will give you the onshore rate. Any direct bank-to-bank transfer should also give you the onshore rate. Evel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WorldFun Posted February 21, 2007 Report Share Posted February 21, 2007 You can only try! My citibank in europe won't even wire money to citibank Thailand, but I do enjoy free ATM withdrawels at Citi ATMs on sathorn RD BKK. The conversion rate is usually around 1% over the interbank rates as posted on oanda.com (thb/usd=33.2 on 21feb) or other such sites for any given date that I did that. From bangkokbank.co.th it can be noted they buy at 35.3!! Why such big difference? Wonder how much the gold shops are paying these days? Bring on the cash again Wire transfers usually don't come out more favorably than that even if doing conversion in LOS side IME. YMMV. Alternatively I could use free credit card withdrawels at any ATM globally, but outside eurozone at hefty conversion rate surcharge of 3.65% is added to all amounts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palatkik Posted February 22, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2007 If your ATM card is issued through the MasterCard (Cirrus) network, you'll get the offshore rate. Visa cards (Plus network) will give you the onshore rate. Any direct bank-to-bank transfer should also give you the onshore rate. Evel That might explain it as I'm using Cirrus network. Anyway yesterday I wired from Citibank US to Kasikorn Thai in USD and got a effective rate of Wire rate 35.273 inclusive all charges. The same time I went to UOB ATM and got 32.7 inclusive all charges. This works over 7% more expensive using Cirrus ATM's or paying an extra 25USD to get 10,000baht. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavanami Posted February 23, 2007 Report Share Posted February 23, 2007 You can only try!My citibank in europe won't even wire money to citibank Thailand, but I do enjoy free ATM withdrawels at Citi ATMs on sathorn RD BKK. The conversion rate is usually around 1% over the interbank rates as posted on oanda.com... Are you sure Citibank doesn't charge you 3% when you use the ATM in BKK? My main Citibank account is in the USA and they started charging a 3% ATM fee 12 Dec 2006 (or about this time). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnakAtak Posted February 23, 2007 Report Share Posted February 23, 2007 This works over 7% more expensive using Cirrus ATM's With these large differences in rates vs USD 33 offshore vs 35.5 onshore whatâ??s to stop people sending Thai baht offshore for exchanging to USD and wiring the USD back for a profit? And if they are doing it, whats the procedure, becuase I want some too ? :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavanami Posted February 23, 2007 Report Share Posted February 23, 2007 Get yourself a Thai bank account (in Thai Baht), wire the Thai Baht to a USA (for example) account and instruct the USA side to exchange the Baht into USD. Of course, you need to have a pile of Thai Baht in the account to start with, or if in Thailand, exchange here at the higher rate and wire xfer out of Thailand. Even with a 2 Baht spread, the banks on both ends of the xfer will dip and take some of the $$$. Most likely you will not make too much $$$, as the banks have it figured out so the banks make all the big $$$...IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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