Transcript of the above video:

I had a recent situation come up, we ended up getting this person sorted out but they contacted us and they literally told me, they said: "Hey, I am in this catch-22, I don't know what to do. I need a bank account in order to get a Retirement Visa". This person was dealing with trying to get Retirement Visa in country here in Thailand which depending on circumstances may or may not be possible. Under the circumstances though I never really thought of the sort of catch-22 nature of the bank account versus the Retirement Visa. 

Let me explain what we are talking about here. Thai Retirement Visas require, in order to obtain a Thai Retirement Visa you have got to show 800,000 Baht in a Thai bank account or 65,000 Baht a month in inbound pension income. Now the thing to understand about both of those is you need a bank account for that to occur. Well if you come to Thailand for example in tourism status and maybe you want to try to convert into a Retirement Visa which again may or may not be possible depending on your circumstances, one major obstacle is the fact that generally speaking banks in Thailand are not really keen to open bank accounts for those on Tourist Visas or for those on a Visa Exemption stamp. For this reason, you may find yourself in a catch-22. To get into retirement status you have got to get a bank account and in order to get a bank account you need a Retirement Visa, because that is a Non-Immigrant Visa and generally speaking banks are relatively cooperative when setting up a bank account on a Non-Immigrant Visa especially a Retirement Visa because there is no Work Permit associated with that which can be an issue in certain circumstances. 

The thing to understand and the thing to take away from this video is yes you can end up in a catch-22 situation vis-a-vis Banking and Retirement Visa, both issuance or bank account opening. It is probably a good idea to contact a legal professional before embarking on this whole thing in order to gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.