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Heads up: Current Acc + Credit Card on Non-O without Work Permit


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Good Morning,

 

opening a Current Account and getting a (cash covered) Credit Card on a Non-O Visa without a Work Permit is possible. Just did that in Chayaphum yesterday at the Bangkok Bank Branch.

 

Following tips might be helpful from my personal experience, although won't guarantee the success:

 

1) Siam Commercial Bank and Bangkok Bank seem to work best

2) Always talk to the Branch Manager directly. Do not even bother talking to staff, they will be scared and only respond "mai dai, mai me, mai ben" etc.

3) The Branch Managers seem to benefit from "money deposited into the branch", so bringing some money seem to help. (e.g. anything above 500k in Isaan)

4) Interestingly the Credit Limit was no issue at all, as long as it is Cash Covered (he gave me 500k happily at the condition of establishing a 500k fix deposit, automatically rolling over at interest of 0.5%). To my knowledge Siam Commercial Bank asks for 1.5x the Credit Limit as Cash Deposit.

 

5) You will need a lot of time and patience. I spent almost 5 hours at the manager's office just to get all the paperwork done. Tedious repetitions. Could have been done in 10 minutes with a scan of the passport and form based printing.

 

6) Speaking Thai and having some banking knowledge certainly helps, I also had the Yai with me, who is a very resolute big madam who just steam rolled our way Thai Style. She did all the heavy lifting and I only signed papers.

 

For what it is worth to mention: I made bad experiences with KrungThai and Kasikorn, but that may vary from place to place. For example, Kasikorn did not want to roll-over my existing(!) fix deposit when I had no work permit, only to find out that they could not even close that account because they had not enough cash in the branch. Big egg in their face.

 

Lesson learned: it all depends on the branch/manager and to me each branch seems to be a franchise company rather then a local banking unit.

 

Good luck and cheers!

 

 

 

Edited by IgboChief
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It’s all about luck and whether the person you contact is having a good day, bad day, hungry or tired. There doesn’t seem to be a coherent policy although you will almost always hear the words “bank of Thailand “ and work permit. I wanted to open a Kasikorn account in Bangkok, I already had one in another province. I went to one of the Silom branches. Despite showing my existing bank book I was told categorically no work permit no account. No amount of reasoning like “ I don’t work but I already have an account” would work. I insisted he talk to the manager who as usual wasn’t there, except when I pushed harder, he was. He went away, came back after a few minutes with what to me is always a red rag to a bull... “Sir, special for you “. I jumped in and no, it’s not special for me, you made a mistake didn’t you. I know I shouldn’t have made him lose face, but maybe just maybe he’ll learn.

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That's not a Credit Card like in the Western world, as it is / must be covered by a deposit. Always has been like that, unfortunately. Foreigner "high risk" I have been told. They can put their Credit Card where the sun never shines in.

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