Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Retirement Visas, specifically bank accounts associated with Thai Retirement Visas.

I got to thinking of this after reading recent correspondence from someone who sent us an email. Quoting directly: "My only problem is the bank account I got pays me no interest like others get. They are using my money I can't touch but they are not paying me anything to use it." Yeah. This person was talking in the context of Thai Retirement Visas. They were actually commenting via email on a recent video on Thai Retirement Visas but yes there is kind of a well, I mean it is kind of a negative aspect of maintaining a lump sum account is if you are not holder of a Work Permit here in Thailand, most banks, in fact it is my understanding all banks will not grant interest on such an account. It just sits their inert and retirees are kind of the main ones that are going to have to deal with this. Now there are some folks that opt to use the income requirement, some folks that opt to use the lump sum. Unfortunately with respect to the lump sum, yeah it just sits there and you are dealing with it sort of sitting inert because you are using it as your evidence of financial ability to support yourself in Thailand in retiree status.

I personally, I have done some videos on this in the past I think one of the main issues associated with this is it has to do with International Tax Treaties and some banking regulations like Basel 2 and things like this because the person is retired, they are not ostensibly working or earning money in Thailand. I think it is a simplicity thing for the Bank of Thailand, the banking sector, because if you are dealing with interest and things like that, I think that gets you into all these Reciprocal Tax Treaty issues associated with the nationals here in Thailand who are retired who are using these banking facilities. So I think they come by it honestly in the sense that I don't think the banks are trying to do it as some sort of way of just sort of reaping a windfall. It is more having to do with the fact that they are trying to mitigate against sort of undue regulatory compliance that they really don't want to deal with.