Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests we are discussing Banking issues associated with the retirees, specifically American retirees. I did a video recently going back a couple of weeks, where we discussed the sort of catch-22 associated with retirees in Thailand and banking issues. Namely, you get to Thailand, you are looking to retire or you are coming to Thailand and you are looking to retire and one of the requirements is either income coming into a bank account on a monthly basis or a lump sum amount in a Thai bank account maintained over a long enough period of time that it is considered sufficient for sponsorship of a Thai Retirement Visa.

The question becomes: "Well how do I get a Thai bank account? If I am abroad that can be a real problem, if I am in Thailand and I don't have a Retirement Visa yet, how do I deal with that?" We discussed that more at length in that video. This is more of in the context of American retirees especially those who are in Thailand, may not necessarily be here on a Retirement Visa but looking to get a Retirement Visa at some point in the future. Getting a Bank Account for an American can be rather difficult most notably because of certain regulations that came about under the FATCA legislation back in the United States. It created quite a bit of a burden on foreign banks that have American depositors. It created a rather substantial documentation burden on those folks so those who are looking to retire in Thailand they may run up against this. 

We have found many solutions for folks who have this issue and we have had a number of situations where we have sort of cut through the Gordian Knot if you will associated with these kind of catch 22 problems where "Do I need to get the Visa first? Do I get the bank account first?" We have often found that there is a solution. Again it is going to depend on the facts of the case but that is something to think about. Americans should be aware of that, that with all the regulations associated with Americans banking abroad, this can have an impact not only on your ability to bank but on your Retirement Visa here in Thailand as well.