Transcript of the above video: 

Occasionally someone will send us an email, especially from the retiree community here in Thailand, regarding something they have seen or been dealing with and sometimes I think hey, we can make a video on that, that might provide some insight for folks. 

I thought of making this video after receiving such an email, quoting directly: "I am retired in Thailand and have been using my wife's transfer account for deposits into my K Bank Account for a couple of years with no issues. Today why shut me down? as they now say that they need a physical home address in the USA which needs to be verified by them." You know and again just as an aside here, I'm really getting tired of all this pedantic requirements of all of these things and financial intentions, this, that the other thing; you need this, that, da da da, jump through all of these hoops, why? You claim all this digitization is so that it will be easier to deal with everything and then all this pedantry and nitpicketyness over nothing regarding banking matters for expats. Why is it inherently required - I see this all the time with Americans - they talk to me, they say "oh my bank back home says they're closing my account." Who made this law, and can we get rid of it? Why does it exist? And by the way, isn't it an inherent violation of the privileges and immunities of American citizenship and equal protection that these banking platforms and things in the United States say, 'oh no you have to have an address in this specific place.' I'm an American. Why does it matter where I'm at? If you want to service me as a bank, why do you care about such matters? I don't get all of this. That said, quoting further, again going back to privileges, immunities and equal protection, where does it say that they can make laws that discriminate against Americans who live abroad? 14^th Amendment attaches to people - notwithstanding Trump's interpretations - the 14^th Amendment, Citizenship, National Citizenship attaches at birth. You are an American; you either are or you are not, factually at birth. It's a plenary fact, okay, and that's your citizenship, it's attached to you. So how can Banks make rules that discriminate against Americans - especially banks that are in the Federal System, which is basically everybody, and therefore fall under interstate commerce and therefore the Constitution can apply to them – okay, how can they make rules that say that they discriminate against Americans who live inside or outside the United States? How do they do that? Don't Americans have the privileges and immunities and the unfettered right to travel as noted in our founding documents?  So why do the banks get to discriminate against expats like this? It just makes no sense. 

That said, quoting further: "They said the regulations now required physical address, not a mailing address. You may want to do a video on this. Is this the OECD or maybe the new Trump Administration along with their "External Revenue Service behind this?" - No, I don't think that's Trump - quoting further: "Maybe the Davos Bankers?" Could be. Look, the fact of the matter is this has been around for quite a while. I remember guys talking to me about this some years ago and it's still galling me. Quoting further: "Next they will say that I am no longer a resident of the USA and shut down my Social Security," - well they can't exactly do that, but again as you can see they can make everything annoying - "just made my life more costly and difficult. A man just trying to keep his head down and dodging bullets in retirement." Yeah, completely get it sir, completely get it. I think this stuff is galling as well; I don't think these banks have the right to do it this. As I said, just privileges and immunities, equal protection, the right to travel alone. Americans are allowed to not live in America and do banking. I mean where does that come from? It's just ridiculous to me. 

So that being said though, and sort of back to originally what we were talking about, yeah banking can be an issue for retirees. Again, it's usually part of our services when we are assisting folks in getting set up over here in Thailand to assist them with their banking matters and we continue to do that. For folks who find the prospect of retirement in Thailand intriguing but a little bit confusing, especially because there's a lot of nonsense out there on the internet, it may not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional and gain some insight guidance into how best to proceed with regard to Immigration as well as Banking here in the Kingdom of Thailand.