Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Banks are Private Enterprise not Public Institutions. Let me get into why I thought of making this video, and frankly the quote I'm going to go to. Let me just quote. It's from a recent article in the Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: When savings become untouchable: How Thai Bank rules are reshaping expat retirement. Quoting directly, under the sub headline: A quiet policy gap. "There is little appetite amongst expats for abolishing financial requirements all together." Are you kidding? I think any Retirement Visa holder would be happy to get rid of all the financial requirements associated with the Retirement Visa. Quoting further: "What many are asking for instead is clarity, consistency, and a measure of realism." Not instead, but in lieu of not having any requirements, they would prefer that, yes. But then we come to under this bullet point.

• Better coordination between banks and immigration. 

So a couple of things here, first of all, Pattaya Mail, I have got to be honest with you, I'm probably not going to be quoting from you all that much anymore because - it's like I made a video the other day talking about "taxes as a companion" or something like this. Like what? And this notion that “little appetite amongst expats for abolishing financial requirements". Have you ever talked to any of the expats about the financial requirements? They would be happy to get rid of them. That said, it's never going to happen. I don't think any expats, retiree or otherwise are unaware that yeah, the host country would like to see that you have the financial means in order to remain in that country without becoming a burden, but if they were abolished tomorrow, everybody would probably rejoice; that would be fine. That said, that I'm not here to really critique the article or anything, I just thought about when I read this bullet point:  

• Better coordination between Banks and immigration.

Why?  Banks are not the Government; banks are banks. Now what has happened here in the past year, or over the course of the past year - it has really been the past 6 months - we've been seeing this in earnest, is there seemed to have been some pressure from both the Bank of Thailand, as well as Government authorities otherwise, on certain Banks, notably it looks like Bangkok Bank was the main recipient of pressure to basically put freezes on people's accounts, and this is the key point here - when they were asking for Certification as to the funds in their account. So you're going to the bank, and you're asking them for a Certificate that you're going to present to Immigration. The bank then says, "yeah we'll do that, but we're going to hold the funds for a certain period of time, while you go ahead and use that Certificate with Immigration". They're basically saying look we want to show that you held it or we're going to intervene and hold it in compliance with what the Government wants which it's not a stated law or rule that this 800,000 or whatever you use for your financial requirements, remain in a Thai Bank account for a specified period of time. We have seen different Immigration Officers over time saying they would prefer to see that and exercise their discretion in denying visa applications if it doesn't reach that threshold, if it doesn't say; back during "Big Joke" we had to deal with this. The balance had to be there I think it was 90 days prior to the application for the Retirement Visa and 60 days after it had been issued; that was its own issue. That said, that was a Government mandate and the Government was basically imposing that and if you couldn't show that you in fact had that money per their stipulations, per their requirements, you didn't get the visa; it wasn't the banks enforcing a hold on your money. And this is the problem; this is the problem with all of this.

Quite honestly, it's pure globalism. This has all coming within the past two years roughly, since we have seen the end of the "so-called" Military Government here in Thailand which by the way it's worth pointing out at this point, that over nine years and change that they were in power, none of those people ever attended the World Economic Forum or anything. That was quoted in Bangkok Post. I cited that in videos way in the sort of past at this point, I think a year ago, longer, when I cited that, but yeah that's important to point out. All of this has been happening since this new Government came in in '23. I was about to say, "since we got all this democracy" as I know that that's a big buzz word in the sort of globalist community. But at the end of the day, it's like this situation. It's pure totalitarianism. In a way this is what you would call sort of fascism for lack of a better term. Sort of where the Private Enterprise does what the Government wants because the Government can't really do it or couldn't enforce it well or there would be workarounds for people, if it was just the Government enforcing policy. And now the banks have gotten into it, and I find it very concerning. The banks are not the state, and at the same time they're private enterprises who take our money and hold it and get to lend it out at interest and things - and it's deeper than that, they basically print money and lend it out at interest which is how the system really works - but again they have just sort of sidelined us all, and they pretend like we are not the customer. We are. 

Now again, I understand the notion that you're asking for something from the bank. You're asking for the bank to issue you a document that says you have this money in the account, and the banks say "well in order to do that, you need to meet these criteria." That being said, that's a bad way to treat your customers, and frankly if I was dealing with any bank, I'm not naming any specific bank here, but any bank that treated me like that, I would seriously be considering looking for banking services elsewhere. Because why should my funds be frozen up just because I need a letter to tell the government that I have "my own money" by the way. This is just another thing everybody seems to be forgetting. This is these people's own money? Where do the Banks or the Government or anybody get the right to say, "oh no, you lose the rights of that money while you're going through this Immigration thing" or something. It's just ridiculous, and then on top of that, I have to wonder is there some boon, is there some benefit to the banks by being able to just lock people's money up for a long periods of time, whatever the pretext is. Again this is bad policy. It's also frankly alarming on so many levels because it is totalitarianism through bootstrapping basically for lack of a better term.

And frankly, I have to imagine people in the Expat Community are going to seriously reconsider Thailand as a place to retire and definitely reconsider or seriously consider what banks they're going to be using in Thailand in light of all of this. We don't have to be doing this okay. Thailand does not have to operate at the behest of the OECD or the WEF or whoever else. I did an article recently, notwithstanding the fact I rather respected the Council on Foreign Relations over the years, I have liked reading their stuff, but maybe there's something to them too now at this point as they've thrown in there they did an article where they were talking about Thai politics where in my opinion it was like, "are you just intentionally overlooking this huge thousand pound gorilla in the room?" - I won't get into all of that - but again all of this undue foreign influence is having no appreciable benefit to the Thai population, and on top of that, if anything, it's causing all kinds of problems here.

I think Thailand and frankly the foreign community in Thailand, needs to seriously take a look at all the machinations of these Banks and things and frankly the machinations of some of the Government over the past 5 years as they locked us down, killed our businesses, said we couldn't go anywhere, wanted to track and trace us everywhere. Now they want us to do Biometrics to do banking for our own money and they want to be able to freeze our own money to be able to go ahead and extend visas and things when that's never been necessary. Just prove up the funds of there and move on. Why get the banks involved in freezing people's funds for months if not longer time on end. Again, it makes no sense to me. That being said, we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.