Bristolian wrote:The simple answer is that yes you can get a credit card..... But there are of course strings attached.
If you are on a WP or retired, all banks will require that you have been resident for a given period, which is open to the bank's discretion but is normally 6 months.
The bank will ask you for a deposit equal to your monthly "credit limit" which must remain in the bank whilst you hold the "credit" card.
Your balance, as shown on your monthly statement, must be cleared in that month, from a different account. I.e. Not the deposit account for the CC. in this way, the bank is not at risk of you defaulting. The cash is automatically transferred from your account to clear the outstanding balance. If there are insufficient funds your CC is immediately cancelled and the insufficiency is taken from your CC deposit account.
The *ankers are always 100% assured of clearing the outstanding balance and therefore not at risk.
In effect the CC is a debit card but with the advantage that you can use it with suppliers or service suppliers who do not accept debit cards.
I have held two BBL credit cards for over 15 years and the only difference for me was that I was never required to deposit the monthly credit limit. That is a requirement that I believe was introduced around 10 years ago due to the high levels of defaults from both foreigners and locals.
For those who are retired and use the bank balance (800K) method, I understand that you can use the same account but I did not check this thoroughly with my bank as I still have a couple of years before I plan to retire. If this is proven true, there would be no need to tie up additional funds.
100% correct.
They opened fixed accounts and transferred some money from my savings.
And handed me the cards on the spot.
The only minor downside is you now have to show two or three bank statements at immigration, not one.
I had no problem with using a mixture of saving and fixed accounts at immigration.
But best if you get statements printed along with passbooks because they are easier for immigration to see the dates and do the math.
The lady was sort of grumpy.
300 baht for printing the statements the day before you go to immigration. good for seven days.
make sure the bank stamps each page with their 1950's rubber stamp.
and of course just make sure you still have a total of 800k in the bank 90 days before you go into immigration.
Other banks may do the same. But I can only speak from my experience at BB.
And again, FOR ME, the main business branch where they speak English and are setup to deal with you properly.
Not ANY small mall type office. EVER.
I really like this forum because there are no personal attacks. All the members contribute in a positive way to my posts.
