Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing "bank account seasoning" issues associated with Thai O Visas, and to be clear, we are talking about specifically the O Marriage Visa in this video not the O Retirement Visa, so specifically talking about Marriage Visas. I initially thought of making this video - I'll throw this up on screen - this was a comment on one of our prior videos - Bangkok Bank new rules for Marriage Visa seasoning and then a whole string of question marks. Okay. So I saw that, basically just cut and pasted the question over into Google, and Google AI came back with this. I'll go ahead and throw this on screen as well.

Bangkok Bank has introduced a stricter internal policy regarding seasoning funds (the minimum period the required money must sit in the account) for expats applying for or renewing a Thai Marriage Visa (Non-O). 

The New Bangkok Bank Rules at a Glance

While Thai Immigration officially requires your funds to be seasoned for 2 months before application, Bangkok Bank has implemented additional internal requirements. 

The 4-Month Rule: Bangkok Bank now requires the required THB 400,000 to have been in your account for 4 months before they will issue a standard bank balance certificate. 

The 2-Month Alternative (Fund Freezing): If your funds haven't been in the account for 4 months, the bank can still issue a certificate for Immigration (proving it has been there for 2 months). However, they will require you to sign a pledge, effectively freezing/blocking those funds so they cannot be withdrawn for the next 4-months. 

Discrepancy: Note that this is a specific bank policy, not a formal Thai Immigration Policy." 

Yeah, I have talked about this at length in other videos. We are just dealing with this now where Bangkok Bank it seems especially, other Banks aren't necessarily doing this and understand this is a banking phenomenon. This is not being required by Thai Immigration; in fact sometimes if you talk to them, they get a little bit unhappy if you will. They are sort of annoyed, maybe that's not the right word, but essentially when I have spoken to them or folks, our people here in the office that deal with Immigration have spoken to them, the response has been from Immigration it's like, "Why are they doing that? We don't even require that." But that's what the banks are doing. 

As I have discussed in other videos, I have got some real issues with what is emanating just generally from the banking sector. I put up a video recently where I cited a Tucker Carlson interview with a gentleman who basically said that look, the entire 1997 financial crisis was essentially engineered from outside of Thailand in order to take control of various key industries and sectors. It didn't ultimately work in a long-term sense, although it really had an impact on this country. I didn't even realize it. When I got here in '08, which was a little more than 10 years after the fact, they were still dealing with the aftermath of that. And to Thailand's credit, the establishment here essentially made the determination that they were going to keep the Thai Baht fully fungible, and the result, the upshot of that was that a lot of foreigners did get to come in here and I think the Retirement Visa for example, the laxity of the rules regarding that at the time, were more driven by folks bringing in money than anything, because they wanted to keep the Baht fungible. 

In one of Jim Rickards' books that he calls The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse or Monetary Apocalypse, I can't remember if it's Currency Wars or the Death of Money, in any event he talked about Thailand specifically in there and how Thailand, from '97 was trying to get as much foreign reserve into the country as possible, and then when we hit 2017, 20 years later, we were doing the exact opposite. It was ‘beggar thy neighbour’ in order to keep currencies weak in order to keep exports up. And so we have seen a lot of outside influence in the Banking Sector on all types of things here in Thailand. Unfortunately, it is having an impact on not Immigration Policy, but the practicalities associated with maintaining specifically in this case, an O Marriage Visa here in the Kingdom Thailand.