Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the sort of Retirement Visa banking paradox. What are we talking about here? I did a video on this years back maybe, months definitely, regarding this sort of Catch-22 if you will associated with obtaining a Bank Account and getting a Retirement Visa. The problem is when you come into Thailand without a Retirement Visa, in order to get a Bank Account, you need to have a Retirement Visa or some sort of Non-Immigrant Long-term Visa generally. Different banks are slightly different but for the most part this is pretty good rule of thumb information. Most banks will not open you a bank account without some kind of long stay Visa, something akin to a basically a Non-immigrant Visa, but we are talking about Retirement Visas here so I am going to keep it to for example the O Retirement Visa primarily. 

This is a problem for some folks. We have assisted folks in getting their banking sorted and getting their retirement stuff sorted at the same time. We have got a good system for doing that but I do know it can be very frustrating, especially for new folks, to get into the system because you need the visa to get the bank account, the bank account to get the visa, it can be a real again Catch-22, a true paradox. So again, we do provide such services here at our firm. We assist a number of people in both obtaining as well as converting to and extending Retirement Visas; we assist with banking matters pertaining thereto, and we are often able, and by ‘we’ I mean the gals here in my office that spend the bulk of their time literally, physically present at Thai Immigration on a near daily basis because of our case load, those ladies definitely have figured out ways to cut through these sort of Gordian Knot paradox situations. 

That said, every case is different; every case is going to be driven by specific circumstances. So those who are interested in getting into Retirement Visa status here in the Kingdom of Thailand are encouraged to contact a legal professional, gain some insight guidance into how best to proceed.