Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing, now it appears Thailand Elite Visa holders are having trouble with Thai bank accounts. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article, well not actually, excuse me not an article, it's actually comment from one of our recent videos talking about Banking and Visas, quoting directly: "Recent comments in the Elite Visa Facebook group suggest that even Elite Visa holders cannot open new Thai Bank Accounts anymore unless they own property in Thailand." 

I know where this is coming from; it looks to me like it is coming from the World Economic Forum and all of this OECD nonsense, where I think foreign influence, undue for an influence, has come in to Thailand and really had a negative impact on both Immigration Policy, Tax Policy and Banking Policy but yeah, okay this is anecdotal, but nonetheless I felt like it was important. It looks like now Thailand Elite Visa holders are having troubles with Bank accounts. I've discussed in videos before that Destination Thailand Visa holders have seen themselves having problems with Bank Account opening or maintaining - that’s something to really take away from this too - maintaining bank accounts here in Thailand is becoming increasingly difficult unless people are on the kind of classic non-immigrant Visas. So as we have discussed in other videos, those are things like the O, the O-A Retirement Visas, either of those; O Marriage Visas, standard Business Visa for example is a standard non-Immigrant Visa, those are having no real problems if you have the underlying visa to maintain one's bank account. But what we have seen is people coming in on Tourist Visas and things and Visa exemptions, opening bank accounts and then later the bank is contacting them and saying, "hey, are you now in a more permanent Visa situation? If not, we are hearing reports that they are saying we are going to close your account." So now it looks like this is spreading over into the Thailand Elite system which as I have discussed in other videos, Thailand Elite is often misunderstood. It has evolved a lot. It was a creation of Thaksin way back in the middle 2000s and round about 2004, 5, and it sort of effectively died when he was gone and then it was sort of resurrected. I've now seen three iterations of the term since it was resurrected, but what people need to understand is it is not a standard Non-immigrant Visa in the common sense of the term; it really is sort of like a VIP Tourist Visa; it's like a really long Tourist Visa, that's how I look at it, and it looks like its status may be having an impact on people being able to obtain and/or maintain banking facilities here in Thailand. 

Exactly the details of this remain to be seen. We will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.