Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Bank deposit protections and Thai Retirement Visas. 

In a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Thailand's Cut in Bank Deposit Protection Doesn't Mean a Collapse is Imminent. We are just quoting a small subsection from this article. I urge those who are watching this video go check out that article at pattayamail.com. Quoting directly: "From August 11th, the maximum deposit protection in individual Thai Bank accounts is reduced from 5 million to 1 million Baht or about 22,000 British pounds. Inevitably this has set off a wave of Social Media frenzy with foreign retirees and others alarmed that their cash deposits might disappear overnight or even that the whole of the Thai Banking system is in danger of disintegration. Best to calm down." (Well put). Quoting further: "The Deposit Protection Act of 2008 was introduced in the wake of the world financial crisis of that era. The amounts protected have been regularly reduced over the years until they reached 5 million Baht then in April 2020 the Thai Cabinet announced the 1 million limit would come into force in August 2021 but this still covers 98.03% of total depositors investing in 35 financial institutions according to Kasikorn Research Centre." 

Okay a couple of things going on here, again go check out Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com if you are interested in reading that article in full and I suggest folks that are watching this video who probably are interested, would be interested in the details of that article. From the standpoint of retirees, the first thing to understand, yes the protection is being dropped from 5 to 1 million and as the author noted, I don't think that is cause for concern that there is some imminent threat that we are not seeing. This has just been a slow draw down over the course of many years and this was passed last year, the resolution came into force this year. This was just happening regardless. So reading in ulterior motives here is not a good idea. Next, the minimum requirement for capital maintained in a Thai account for a Retirement Visa is 800,000 Baht if you are using a lump sum in a Thai Bank to prove up capital requirements. The other option is to use ongoing income, pension income generally speaking is how this is done and you are dealing with 65,000 Baht monthly and you have got to show proof of that if you want to go ahead and maintain it via pension. With respect to maintaining it by bank balance, well 800,000 is less than 1 million so obviously that is going to be protected. I have had a fair number of people contact me worried about this and my response was "well do you keep much over the 800,000 in the account?" Most folks say “No”. A large number of folks I have talked to say "yeah I actually just set that in there and kind of forget it is there" and just live on other money that I have, income, pension income etc. and they just deal with that as a matter of convenience.

So the thing to take away from this video is yes there are changes to the deposit protections associated with banking in Thailand but are they some sort of imminent threat to Retirees in Thailand? No I don't think it is safe to make that presumption