Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Banking, Basel II and Retirement Visas, and what the heck would anything any of that stuff have to do with any of that stuff? Seemingly nothing, but unfortunately, I've been out here doing this for nearly 20 years, and I've been around Visas, banking protocols, etc., and oddly enough, there is a weird Venn diagram here where all of this stuff sort of connects. Now what are we talking about!

First of all, with respect to Basel II, what is it? Basel II, as opposed to Basel III that we're now dealing with, pertains to Basel, Switzerland, which anyone who knows how the International Banking System works knows that Basel, Switzerland is home to the Bank for International Settlements - sometimes referred to as the Central Bank for Central Banks; not really accurate actually. There is a great book called the Tower of Basel that gets into the history of the BIS. It's actually a rather interesting book. I am not as much of a hater on the BIS as many folks are out there in the ether of YouTube, especially who get into banking and things, because I think I view it a little more realistically. You have to understand what the BIS is. It was created as an entrepot to be able to change gold; that's what it comes down to. They are not actually a bank in the true sense of the term. They are also an odd thing. They are created entirely by Treaty which is why they have extra territoriality in Switzerland. Their facilities are not subject to local jurisdiction, nor any jurisdiction outside of their own. The Tower of Basel if you will - they have a tower that they operate out of in Basel, Switzerland - is sort of akin an Embassy or something. It has extra-territoriality and therefore it's not subject to standard rules and laws. So that's the title Basel II, or that's why we say Basel. Basel II was a set of Directives issued by the BIS and when I say Directives, it's more like guidelines but at the end of the day, this stuff you know all, it's like white papers emanate from the World Economic Forum and the other such organizations and then they somehow become policy. With BIS it's a little bit different. They are an actual institution insofar as they have some official auspices behind them, again created by Treaty, I think under the Dawes Act, or was it the Dawes Plan. It was created during the interwar period because their ostensible purpose which pretty much dissolved the minute they came into existence, was again to assist in war reparations and also to act as an entrepot for gold transactions. 

What does this have to do with the Retirement Visa and banking etc.? Well if you talk to standard O Retirement Visa holders, they will - oftentimes at length - let you know that the money they hold in a bank account, the 800,000 baht to be held for purposes of a Retirement Visa, is held without interest is the case in most bank accounts that involve Retirement Visa holders here in Thailand. Also, the Retirement Visa was specifically created, and specific provisions associated with it make it non-work authorized; people on a Retirement Visa are precluded from working in Thailand. Again, what's the point?  When you go back and look at Basel II, Basel II was trying to create a lot of the environment we are now seeing as being rolled out with all this OECD nonsense, Digital Banking etc., and they were sort of paving the way for that back then. It's my opinion that Thailand or authorities here, whatever relevant body it was that came up with the Retirement Visa, or the Retirement Visa may already have been in existence at the time Basel II came down the pike, in a sense they tweaked the Retirement Visa so as to just sort of sidestep matters that pertained to Basel II. And what I'm talking about is again, issues that we've only recently seen the last few years involving all these charlatans running around saying, "oh you owe taxes and you have to do all this tax filing, and all of this, because you have to offset where your pension came from; you have to utilize double tax treaties etc., etc."  Basel II was bringing a lot of that online in other countries primarily the OECD countries at their time, and Thailand sort of saw all of that and said, "yeah, yeah", paid lip service to Basel II, otherwise their banking system is up to speed. But I think largely they essentially tweaked or kind of created the Retirement Visa that just sort of walked between the raindrops when it came to issues such as, for example not having interest bearing accounts associated with Retirement Visas gets them out of a lot of onerous stuff that they have to do with regard to Basel II, certain compliance things they would have had to do under Basel II. If the account just doesn't earn any interest, there is no taxable event; that's what it comes down to. The money is just sitting inert, so that Thai Banks don't have to undergo or undertake any steps that would cost them time and resources because the Account Holder isn't accruing any interest; there's no taxable event to worry about. 

Again, this stuff pertains to banking, but it has broader implications as we have seen in this rollout of OECD, which in my opinion is riddled with all kinds of problems. As I have discussed in other videos, it's not fully promulgated law. As I've also discussed in other videos, Mr. Trump over the United States issued an Executive Order explicitly getting rid of this, and I think Thailand would be wise to look at that Executive Order, as he notes, it creates extra-territorial jurisdiction in the United States; I think that there's similar analysis that could be played out here, and it pertains to National Sovereignty. And it is, in my opinion a threat to National Sovereignty for a variety of different reasons, most notably it would allow influencers outside of Thailand to dictate how Tax Policy could work in Thailand; the reason I have a serious problem with it. 

Now that being said, and again to kind of conclude and round this thing up, seemingly these things don't have anything to do with each other but to my mind, the old school standard Retirement Visa was - if you look at Basel II and its implications - sort of designed to step in and to basically not put the onus on Thai Banking institutions etc., to deal with reporting requirements and things associated with Retiree Bank Accounts here in Thailand. I also think the lack of work authorization was again specifically designed to be able to say whatever Basel II says, whatever you think is going on, or whatever you think should happen, none of these retirees are work authorized, so they can't earn an income in Thailand - and that was sort of the rubric of the past - things are changing now, but if you're not earning an income in Thailand, then how can any of this international tax issues apply? Again, I know I'm kind of being a little bit vague in all of this, because again it wasn't exactly like there was a policy statement made that said "hey we're designing the Retirement Visa to sort of act as a work-around or certain aspects of it work around these Basel II requirements", but if you've been around the system long enough and you've seen it close enough, you can see that "hey, why would they have non-interest bearing accounts, why did they specifically non-work authorize the Retirement Visa?" Well, when you look at Basel II and then you realize, hey we don't want to create taxable events that puts an onus on us to do anything with respect to reporting etc., it starts to kind of fall together. 

That being said, again it's a bit of a nebulous analysis. I'm not saying it's the end-all be all. You can't use Basel II as some kind of a road map for how Retirement Visas work. I just think it's worth pointing out especially as we are going through this time period where they are trying to roll out more banking nonsense here in Thailand, I think it's worth pointing out the history of banking, banking protocols, and visas here in the Kingdom of Thailand.