Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggest, we are discussing banking and visas here in Thailand. Just one really salient point I am going to make in this video - I'll try to keep it short - is anybody trying to get a new Bank Account that has anything other than a Non-immigrant Visa, so we are talking the Non-immigrant O Visa, possibly as the spouse of a Thai citizen, Non-Immigrant O as a retiree, Non-immigrant O-A sub-category also for retirees on a Visa issued abroad, Non-immigrant B Visa holders are probably going to be on the same boat, although B Visa holder's generally have Work Permits; banking for them has not really proven to be much of an issue. 

Folks that are coming in though on for example the DTV, Visa Exemption, Tourist Visas, Visas-on-Arrival are increasingly having problems getting banking facilities. And we are also hearing anecdotally as I have discussed in other videos on this channel, they are actually shutting down Bank Accounts, contacting Bank Account holders and saying, "hey come in, we want to see what your visas status is", and if you don't have a Non-immigrant Visa, they are actually shutting down accounts. DTV holders have told me this; Tourist Visa actually holders have told me that they have actually been called into the bank and had their bank accounts shut down; I have gotten emails on that in the past a couple of weeks. 

Look at the end of the day, however you look at this, whether I like it, you like, anybody likes it, and I don't think this is very good policy. I'm not even convinced the vast majority of the people who worked in the banking system even really want this or think it's a great idea, but they are all just sort of looks to me like going along to get their paycheck. Long story short, we are dealing with this; it's here.

The point of this video though is if you are looking to come into Thailand and be here long term, and you are not here yet, I am talking to people that haven't gotten to Thailand yet, and you are hearing all this stuff about banking and all of this stuff, there are solutions here. There is a way through this maelstrom of frankly misinformation, disinformation and just otherwise nonsense across the ether of the internet. There is a path through. Your best bet though is to contact a legal professional before getting to Thailand because if you set yourself up before you get here, in various ways - there are a number of things you can do to prepare to come to Thailand, I get into some of this in further detail in our long-form videos with our paid news service. If you are interested in that, you can email us, [email protected], we can put you on the mailing list for the paid new service long-form videos. While I am talking my book very briefly, also my better half and I set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok. It is called Pancake Palace, as the name implies breakfast anytime, as well as American Diner style food; we will put some photos up on screen. If you're interested, links are in the description below if you want to come down and see us at Pancake Palace. 

But going back to talking about setting yourself up before you get here. That's key. There may be things that you can do, including getting certain types of visas to come here in a status that will put you in a place to quickly be able to get things like banking facilities and also to streamline the processing of things like these extensions. Again, everyone's case is different, so the underlying facts in a given case are going to drive the analysis regarding appropriate Immigration documentation as well as issues associated with banking facilities here in the Kingdom of Thailand.