Opening A Bank Account

[New Petchburi Pete]

For the purposes of opening a bank account in LOS,

 

what form of money should I bring from The States?

 

Is a check acceptatable, say a Treasurer's check?

 

Or should it be cash, Travelers' Checks ... ?

[Guest]

Cash and travelers' checks both work fine. But assuming you plan to maintain an account in your home country ATM cards give you ease of use, the current exchange rate, low fee/transaction (40-45 baht from your issuing bank), and security (don't have to worry about lost or stolen cash or checks). But you are limited to 20k(?) baht/day on an ATM card which shouldn?t be a problem unless you want to make one large deposit. ATM cards with Plus or Star symbol on the back are widely accepted.

 

 

 

If you want to open an account or make a deposit to one, use the ATM at the bank and hand the baht over to the bank teller.

 

 

[Straycat]

Checks issued by foreign banks can be a major hassle to cash in LOS. It's not that it's impossible -- but it does take some time before the money will show in your LOS account. The fees involved can also be hefty.

 

 

 

It's better to use cash or wire it from your non-LOS account. Wires from US to LOS goes thru in less than three days (using the SWIFT wire system).

 

 

 

For the sake of non-hassles you shouldn't wire in more baht than equivalent of USD 5000. More money than that and the banks are required by law to report it to the proper authorities.

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Straycat

[gummigut]

Yah, when I first came over here, I brought a cashier's check from my bank. You know what? After two months, I sent it back to my bank in the US to be redeposited.

 

 

 

lol

 

 

 

<<burp>>

[Guest]

All--

 

 

 

I'd agree.. In theory bank issued cashier's checks **should** be fine, but in reality they are really slow and the fees can be painful.

 

 

 

I'd recommend cash and/or travellers checks.

 

 

 

On a side note, TFB will accept US Bank-Issued cashiers checks (without fees, but subject to conversion) and will give you three business day credit so long as the check is drawn on TFB's US clearing agent bank (Citibank N.A.)..

 

 

 

I have done this only four times (quarterly profit sharing checks) and each time was done within the 3 day time frame and without fees.

 

 

 

--UPSer