Transcript of the above video:

The title of this video is discussing Bank Accounts. I probably shouldn't say Thailand is clamping down because it is not like the Government of Thailand per se is clamping down on the granting of Bank Accounts but certain policies promulgated by the Bank of Thailand oftentimes have ramifications within the Commercial Banking sector, so I went ahead and titled it the way I did, based on a quote from the forthcoming article I am going to cite. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Virtually no Asian restrictions in place for the expected influx of Chinese tourists. Now there is a lot of information in this article. I urge those who are watching this video go read it in detail. I am going to quote an excerpt here for our purposes but the article definitely went on a different direction so quoting directly: "There are also concerns in Thailand and some other countries about police corruption which has encouraged the granting of long-stay Business or Student Visas to Chinese citizens not actually qualified to receive them. Thai Authorities have responded by transferring Immigration Officials, clamping down on the granting of Bank Accounts to Chinese Nationals and denying Visa Extensions beyond the 30 days visa-on-arrival for Chinese passport holders. But for the moment, the sky's the limit as far as outward bound Chinese tourism is concerned. As the Chinese Xinhua news agency delicately puts it. "We are teaching friendly neighbors how to smile again."

So again I think this is quite interesting and again folks read this stuff and they say, "oh they are targeting the Chinese, I am not going to worry about that that!" That isn't how these things tend to work. As we have discussed in other contexts specifically US Immigration in the context of the so-called Muslim ban under Trump, that had broad-based ramifications; that had implications even here in Thailand and we have read the Department of State protocols that were put in place to deal with things that seemingly had nothing to do with the so-called Muslim ban but it had ramifications on the overall US Immigration System. I think similar circumstances could develop here in Thailand where yes ostensibly certain stringent measures come down the pike as a result of trying to deal with an influx of possibly illegal or illicit actors coming into Thailand for example possibly from China seems to be what they are talking about. That doesn't necessarily mean it stays contained to dealing with nationals from that specific country. I suspect we could see ramifications with respect to this for other foreign nationals looking to set up Bank Accounts here in the Kingdom of Thailand.