Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing what I can only describe as seriously onerous banking issues here in Thailand now. 

Now this stuff is primarily in a digital context but as we will get into, as I have discussed it first off in a video I made contemporaneously with this one, there are now announcements Destination Thailand Visa holders are receiving notifications that their bank accounts, they need to show up at a bank and show their passports etc. to verify their immigration status, which this is really getting ridiculous and I'll get into this further as we get into the article I'm going to cite here. But when did the banks have any right to dictate or have anything to do with Immigration. This is really ridiculous, this tying together; I don't want to get into a skreel here of what I think about the World Economic Forum and this totalitarianism of public-private interaction, where Private Entities are doing what Public Entities can't do, and Public Entities will do what Private Entities can't do, in order to just make all of our lives more miserable. I don't really want to get into that, but to preface this understand, in the background is also the issue of DTV Visa holders are seeing notifications that their accounts will be closed and that future DTV holders look like they are not going to be able to get banking facilities here in Thailand for whatever reason. So that's its own problem. It looks to me like the DTV, the reason for it is, as I have discussed, the DTV was entirely created by Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ministry Foreign Affairs doesn't have anything to do with internal immigration or internal matters here in Thailand. It really was not good policy making in my opinion because they didn't create a consensus between internal and external operation and basically these DTVs are not considered non-immigrant Visa status effectively. They're basically like really long exemptions and specifically they are not work authorized for Thailand. And as Interior has pointed out, anything that impinges upon the Thai economy, which could be anything is considered necessary for work authorization so basically, they're saying hey you can't have Banking facilities because that would impinge upon Thailand’s economy and that's not what these visas are designed for. So not a great situation for Destination Thailand Visa holders, or those looking to get into the Destination Thailand Visa.

Before I jump into the article I'm going to cite here, I think it is worth pointing out, I am going to get into what I expect to be quite a deep dive in our paid news service this upcoming weekend, probably Sunday, I will be making a long form basically discussion on a lot of this stuff: banking, tax, as well as the political situation that is swirling all around us right now both here in Thailand as well as in Southeast Asia generally, as well as matters pertaining to the conflict with Cambodia, albeit that seems to be subsiding at least somewhat at this particular moment and just how all this plays into expat land here in Thailand and what folks can maybe expect in the upcoming week to 10 to 14 days. So those who are interested in long form content on that you may want to check out our paid news service. You can email us, [email protected], for paid news service information. Meanwhile, while I am talking my book very quickly, my better half and I did set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok; it is called Pancake Palace. As the name implies, it's breakfast anytime. We have also got American Diner style food, chilli bowls, cheeseburgers; we've got buffalo wings, best buffalo wings in the city in my opinion, even grilled cheese sandwiches, glass bottled Coke. If you are interested, there are links in the description below. We'd love to see you at Pancake Palace 

In any event, let me get into this. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Thailand tightens mobile banking transfer limits. There is a lot in this article and I'm going to go through it here pretty much line by line. I urge those who are watching this video, maybe a good idea to go check out that article in detail. That said quoting directly: "The Bank of Thailand has set a daily transfer limit of 50,000 Baht for children and the elderly using mobile banking, seeking to curb financial fraud." Now first of all, this is framed as if it only pertains to them. As I'm going to get into as we go into a deeper dive, it does not. They are imposing all kinds of restrictions and parameters and things associated with banking, which my initial response to that is where do you get the right to do this? You are just dictating to people; this is really Soviet kind of thinking. I mean just dictating to people “oh if you're of a certain age” or “oh if you are in these parameters, this is just how it is now.” Meanwhile, I have got to be honest with you, this is going to be devastating for Thailand's economy in my opinion, because look I don't think Thai folks really understand, especially from a foreigner’s perspective, I came to Thailand and one of the reasons, it's not the only reason, but one of the reasons I love living here and just dealing with things here is because it's not that it was easy, it was free. We didn't have all of this oversight, all of this onerous nanny-minder thinking associated with banking or anything else here in Thailand when I first got here. And all that I've seen, especially in roughly the past two years, ever since we have seen this new government come in, all we have seen is just tightening down, nanny-minder restrictions, more totalitarianism and we're seeing more of it now and it is coming out in, again this is from Bank of Thailand. So this is going to be all banks. It's not going to be one of these things of “oh because we talked about this in other videos with Retirement Visas, Destination Thailand Visas; different banks are taking different positions but as we will get to in this article, even specific Banks could be worse than what BOT is mandating. Let me get into it further. “The new customer profiling system” - customer profiling system – “will set transfer limits based on the risk profile of each customer segment.” So now we are all being assessed. By the way, these are supposed to be Banks. They're supposed to be service providers to us the customers; we're not supposed to be serfs who have to be assessed and scrutinize by them. They make money off of us, the customer. It's not the other way around. Quoting further: "said Daranee Saeju, Assistant Governor for payment systems policy and financial consumer protection." Again, like "payment systems policy." So this is going to be one of the people that gets to dictate to the entire country how people can be paid for private transactions between private individuals. It is really disheartening. Quoting further: "It divides Mobile Banking users into three groups: suspected fraudsters, general users and vulnerable customers." Note, during COVID they put into everybody's mind the notion that we are all guilty until proven innocent and in that case, it was guilty of having COVID which created the presumption that you had an affirmative duty to put on a mask because you might have COVID and you were presumed to have it. All of this is now bleeding into all of this later totalitarianism, and they sort of prepared everyone's minds during COVID for all this nonsense.

Be clear, in 2019, if they had tried to impose all of this stuff on us, would anybody have put up with it? I don't think so. I think people would be pretty angry. Quoting further: "Vulnerable customers include those under 15 years of age and over 65." Well the other thing that struck me is an over 65-year-old is an adult human." Now the government, not the government but the bank, just gets to dictate to those people, "oh we presume you are incapacitated, therefore you have to deal with these onerous restrictions.” That's ridiculous. Quoting further: "Daily transfer limits are categorized into three tiers: under 50,000 Baht (S) - I think "small", - under 200,000 Baht (M) and above 200,000 Baht (L)." So to them, above 200,000 Baht, the equivalent of $6,000US, is considered some “large transaction” that needs the most heightened levels of scrutiny. Quoting further: "The limit assigned depends on the customer's risk profile and each Bank’s know-your-customer assessment." So now we all have to be assessed and lined up and poked and prodded and they have got to give us a little report card. Quoting further: "Miss Daranee said the measure has already been applied to new mobile banking applicants while existing users must gradually comply by the end of this year." What if we don't want to comply? And by the way, what gives you the right to make us comply about how we move our own money through your service? You are supposed to be the service providers. Quoting further: "Nevertheless, each bank will determine customer risk classification based on its own considerations" - so the baseline for this is what I'm reading about but as we have seen, each bank can have even more onerous restrictions that they put on in this if they should so desire -  Quoting further: "and customers with good financial records will not be affected." 

This just reminds me of the constant comply, comply, comply, during COVID; be a good person and everything will be all right. It's just ridiculous. Quoting further: Quote: "The transfer limit depends on customers' financial behaviour,” said Miss Daranee. Quote: "For example, Banks may start with lower limits for newer inactive clients" - well what's an inactive client? And why would anybody want to set up a bank account with a place if they have got to go through all these hoops. You're not the government; you are private enterprises that are supposed to be facilitating transactions and banking functions for the business community to be able to do business. Quoting further: “Meanwhile, regular customers can continue transactions as usual.” Well it doesn't sound like it. What does that even mean when you're imposing all this new stuff that didn't exist three weeks ago? Quoting further: “Customers seeking higher transfer limits can request an upgrade from their Banks.” Again it's all about now we have got to go ask permission. Please sir, I want some more. In fact, I might make the thumbnail “Please sir, I want some more.” Quoting further: “However, the Central Bank requires banks to pay special attention to vulnerable groups as they are more susceptible to fraud.” This is the constant refrain that this is all done because of all this fraud, and all this fraud. And at the end of this they cite numbers which I would love to see what they mean by these numbers and scams in this thing. Yeah look, at the end of the day there used to be an attitude in the world of “Caveat Emptor, Buyer Beware”. It is not on the government or the banks for that matter to have to run around and be nanny minders for everyone and communally, this is what this comes down to and it is a hallmark of fascism and communism. It's called communal punishment. “Oh there are scammers that target people under 15 or people over 65. Therefore, everyone now in the banking system has to put up with these onerous restrictions”. It's totalitarian, it is wrong, and it is ridiculous. That said, quoting further: "However, the Central Bank requires banks to pay special attention to vulnerable groups as they are more susceptible to fraud." What's the vulnerable group? Who determines that? Quoting further: "Thailand has around 12 million mobile banking users. Existing Central Bank safeguards cap mobile banking transfers at 50,000 per transaction (with facial recognition required)." Quoting further: “and 200,000 baht per day in total." Well thank you so much Central Bank.

And by the way, for anybody that doesn't think this won't have a devastating economic impact, watch what's going to happen. The velocity of money is going to go into the toilet, we're going to watch liquidity tank, the overall economy is going to become moribund, completely non-dynamic, because people can't move money around to make transactions and to do business. Quoting further: "Financial fraud remains a serious concern, said Miss Daranee. In June alone, 24,500 scam cases related to money transfers were reported, causing total losses of 2.8 billion baht - an average of 114,000 Baht per case." I would love to see how this is defined, again as scam cases. I mean was it really a scammer or it was defined that way because it didn't go the way somebody wanted and if you look at the underlying relationship it really was a business relationship, but it just resulted in a net loss, and then one party basically accused the other party of scamming them. That does happen but again, it comes down to communal punishment. Because scams occur, we now have to all deal with a much more very obtuse, very difficult to deal with banking system that is slow and moribund and basically puts all of this nanny-minder restrictions on people who just want to do business. Quoting further: "The largest single fraudulent transfer amounted to 4.9 million baht, according to the Central Bank." So one transfer, that by the way, that's about $150,000, so because of that that is somehow justification and there was one. And again, this is communal punishment thinking; this is gulag archipelago thinking; communist thinking, fascist thinking, totalitarian thinking. Oh there was a scam once. Therefore now we get to control all Banking and restrict you down, grind your ability to do business and move money around down to just an incredible snail's pace or force you to use different methodologies to sort of get around all of this, which then we will say is somehow illicit. Quoting further: "Across the region, victims who transferred more than 50,000 baht per transaction to mule accounts..." Again, they use these buzzwords and things. It's like “money laundering”. That wasn't even a thing prior to 1987 when it was created under US Legislation, which I would argue was overreach then. Quoting further: "..accounted for the largest share of fraud cases of 22%, but made up as much as 76% of total losses." I would love to know where these numbers come from. Quoting further: "On average, scammers needed only 3 minutes to siphon off half of the stolen funds." Again, fear mongering and again, look, scams happen; they are always going to happen. It doesn't matter what monetary system you create; it doesn't matter what banking system you have; it doesn't matter how things of value move around. In barter systems, people scam each other. There were Law Courts in ancient Sameria talking about a guy who stole another guy's cattle, or sheep, or pigs, or goats or something. There is always going to be scams. It doesn't mean that you impose totalitarianism on the whole system. That's communist thinking; that is totalitarian thinking. Quoting further: "While victims typically took 19 - 25 hours to report the fraud." Again this fear-mongering stuff. Yes, this can be a problem. Why don't you put money banks into your anti-fraud systems of trying to counteract those problems rather than putting the onus on the public and on your own customers to have to go through all this nonsense of moving through hoops and doing all this bureaucratic neo-Soviet stuff to move their own money, their own money. And they are your customers; you are supposed to be servicing them. Quoting further: "For the first 6 months of this year, children under 15 were involved in 78,468 financial scam cases." Again, how is that defined? Where are those numbers even coming from? What is it, I think it was Teddy Roosevelt said, "Lies, damn lies, and statistics." I mean I don't know. Quoting further: "While victims over 65 accounted for 416,453 cases." Yeah, I get it. Older folks, they can have some problems and things. I thought Thailand was a family-oriented culture; I thought the point of being Thai and the Thai family unit, it was about taking care of one’s old. Not this communal punishment nonsense of totalitarian regimes like the Communists. We'd be better off taking care of our own families.

The banks would be better off implementing their own enforcement mechanisms to combat fraud rather than putting the onus on the public to not be able to move their own money around through the system and therefore as a result of all of this onus having an overall negative impact on the overall Thai economy, because we have no liquidity and we have no ability to move funds around in order to do business with our own money.