I am hoping that someone with their finger on the pulse can shed some light on the latest situation on exchange rates.

I am having a significant amount of work carried out in a factory in Thailand which is costing at least 10 million Baht. With exchange rates having been stable for some time now I expected to get around 69 Baht to the £ for the first tranche of 4 million Baht.

To my surprise HSBC quoted me approx 63 Baht to the £. Having researched further it would appear that the Interim government have introduced certain measures restricting investment. I had heard about this previously but didn't expect it to affect me. It seems that most Banks at the moment don't want to hold the Baht.

Having enquired with Bangkok Bank in London, it seems even they are offering only around 65 Baht to the £. But my friends in Thailand assure me that the rate on the street in BKK is still around 69 Baht.

I am still looking at the best way for me to transfer the money. I have asked my contact at the factory to open a Sterling account in Thailand and tranfer the money 'in country'.

Any advice would be welcome.

As a side issue, these measures are surely going to batter the Thai economy.

Fly Boy,

Not my area as I'm an Insurance man but there is a currency expert on this site who posts UK daytime and has explained the dual rates elsewhere on this site

Have a search in the money section or maybe he will respond to your post

Anyway good luck
colin 244

Hi we just return from bkk the rate at bkk banks are around 68 to 69. We use nationwide card to withraw money and we do 68 to 69 by taking money from bkk bank atms. But not sure about how to transfer big amounts. But my guess is you can send money from uk bank in pounds to thai bank and let them convert then it should be better that way.

Kuru

I agree Kuru, that appears the best way to me too.

from previous posts on this subject, if u transfer through a bank in sterling, then u must check the slip before u sign it because some banks automatically convert into baht for u unless u say otherwise (more profitable for the bank!), while some other bank staff are not knowledgeable about this, insisting that u can’t send in sterling, and yet others even suggest that u send in us dollars!

bangkok bank is not especially suitable for sending sterling, since it is more expensive than some high street banks, for example nationwide charges £20 and abbey £25.

ian.

I have used Nationwide to transfer a large sum for a condo purchase.
You can easily send the money in Sterling and have the Thai bank convert it on arrival, on their electronic system you have to put the exchange rate as "1".
NW charges £20 for a SWIFT transfer, make sure the Thai bank pays the receiving fees.
Krung Thai Bank charge 0.25% with a maximum fee of 500 Baht.
Be aware that NW now require you to put a reason for the transfer on their form, my last transfer was delayed as the branch were not aware of this and the main office rejected the transfer.
I was annoyed that they did not notify me until I queried as to why the money had not been debited from my account.
They did however refund the £20 fee as they had made a mistake.

Thanks for the advice.

To update you, I have transfered a smaller amount (£10,000)in Sterling via HSBC and have requested that the Thai receiving bank (Bangkok Bank) exchange into Baht. I will advise the rate when I know. If this is a reasonable rate I will transfer a larger amount.

My contact tells me that Thai people cannot open foreign currency accounts!

Hi
I came across this site when replying to another post it might be worth taking a look at
http://www.worldfirst.com/index.html?gclid=CPn65qm33osCFSYSQgodajGsbw

Phil