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Thai Bank Accounts: What's with All the Paperwork?
Transcript of the above video:
As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Bank Accounts specifically the paperwork associated therewith. I get a lot of people when I am talking just in conversation with folks, visas are always going to be on the lips of the expat community; the topic of visas is just something people talk about. Second only to that though seems to be talking about Bank Account stuff and just all of the rigmarole you have to go through to get a Bank Account in Thailand and then maintain it. Then anytime you need to change something like a bank book, they need all kinds of paperwork. The question posed by this video is "what's with all the paperwork?"
Well look, the banks have to do a certain amount of due diligence and so-called "know your customer" which to one degree or another I do understand the "know your customer" for like physical ID. As we discussed in another video made contemporaneously with this one, they are now getting into biometrics and things for banking which I just don't see any reason for that. Personally I think it's a really bad thing; I think it's Orwellian on many, many levels but specifically paperwork so maybe we are looking backwards a little bit about banking in Thailand. Man I remember having to go in with every document you ever had in the world associated with banking to get your Bank Account done or to update it or get a new Bank Book. That said, they do have to do their due diligence and one document, a "Residence Letter", basically a letter that says what your address is here in Thailand, that type of document is extremely important to the Bank because they have to issue legal notices to you by mail. For this reason they have to go ahead and do a lot of paperwork stuff and get a paper document that says your residential address on it. That to me is the big primary reason associated with the paperwork is the fact that they have to send by mail, documentation which has legal import associated with Banking in Thailand.