Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Retirement Visas specifically or retirement in Thailand generally, and Banking in Thailand and the notion of the chicken or the egg. 

Look, more and more, as I have discussed in other videos, there are all kinds of banking issues that are happening for people. Banking is becoming frankly more onerous to deal with. Now not all banks are doing what some of the “big banks” are doing, which is in my opinion doing nothing but alienating customers with all of these ridiculous biometric requirements associated with maintaining bank accounts or “unfreezing” bank accounts all this nonsense associated with so-called mule accounts, which that whole mule account sort of buzzword to my mind, is just completely illegitimate. That said, the point I am trying to make here is banking has become somewhat more difficult to deal with as a foreigner especially in Thailand. On top of that, we have seen crackdowns under the last Government here in Thailand which as of yet, I haven't seen it reversed but we are in early days on this government, and it doesn't have very long; this government only has like a shelf life of four months.

But the point I'm trying to make is they tightened things down with regard to converting Visa status, where that's basically impossible now to convert into the Retirement Visa status in Thailand which then brings up the issue of "well how do I get a Retirement Visa? I need a bank account which I can't get on things like a Tourist Visa or a Visa Exemption or a DTV, which again banking restrictions are now saying you can't get a bank account on those things, but I want to retire in Thailand." 

Well there are ways of dealing with this. We have a number of different solutions depending on the facts in a given individual's case wherein we can get them into some kind of either Visa status or banking status and then be able to get them into proper retiree status and then long-term, they can use that along with their bank account to maintain their status. So there are options out there but again it is going to depend heavily on the facts in a given case as to which options can be utilized. I don't see banking getting any easier particularly moving forward although I hope it does. I very much hope for example Thailand rejects joining the OECD, so we don't have to deal with any of this anymore. 

But that said, that remains to be seen, and we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.