Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing requirements associated with well requirements for Visa Extension, not associated with, but the requirements for a Visa Extension. In the past, we have assisted a number of people over the years dealing with Retirement Visa Extension, Business Visa extension etc., Marriage Visa Extension in some limited cases - those cases can be a little bit difficult sometimes - but yeah Visa extension generally. Business Visa extension is kind of its own thing but Retirement and Marriage Visa Extensions, oftentimes you are going to have to show documentation pertaining to your financial ability to support yourself in Thailand in order to obtain an extension of status, be it in Retirement Visa status, Marriage Visa status. Again Business Visas, they tend to be extended in a different way and you are not looking at banking information per se, you are actually looking at Work Permit documentation, tax documentation associated with an extension of a Business Visa. 

But for purposes of this video, I want to go ahead and put this up on screen and it's titled: Records the testimony of aliens long stay. This is from Roi-Et Immigration Office as you can see but quoting directly: "I have colleded (I think they meant collected) money by opening the accounts with the banks in Thailand as follows. Then as you can see, they have: Bank name, Branch, Province, Account number, Deposit amount, Total balance etc. I mean they are asking for a lot of information at least Roi- Et Immigration is.

I was actually made aware of this via one of the viewers of this channel. Tip of the hat to that person for sending me this but yeah it does look like they are starting to ask for more and more information pertaining to banking directly from Immigration. So that means now Immigration would have your bank account info in their own files. Now whether or not that is hooked into the digital system I don't know; whether or not that has any bearing on whether or not the banks can really talk to law enforcement even Immigration, I'm not sure  that that's really in the offing because there are Bank Privacy rules here in Thailand which do preclude the Government from having total access to your documentation associated with banking, although here recently I have noticed IDs are now required for those who want to transfer money bank to bank. That was something I really liked about first being here in Thailand is that they had a lot of Bank privacy. You could do your own business, you could transact in cash. Now it's increasingly it seems like I don't know, it seems like the Government is more and more getting on board with this World Economic Forum agenda or the OECD or whatever it is to where we're going to be surveilled and what not in terms of our Banking, and this appears to be sort of one more step in that direction. 

Now I do understand, Thai Immigration has something of a different mandate especially here in Thailand and from the standpoint of yeah I get that they need to enforce Immigration Law, adhere to Immigration Policy here in Thailand, I do sort of understand why banking information and perhaps documentation might be of interest to Thai Immigration. Now that said, I still don't love the trend over all. I do understand why there might be a need for it in an Immigration context but I often worry as I believe it was Oliver Wendell Holmes, a Justice on the Supreme Court said "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". This may be one of those examples of ongoing pavement.