How can expats in Thailand manage banking issues while on a DTV visa?

As I get more questions from fellow DTVers regarding the matter in private, I wanted to share my family’s 4 month experience of living without Thai bank accounts on DTV visa and walkarounds that proved to be working so far.

The story is pretty standard: we live in Thailand with kids and got affected by the first wave of Thai bank crackdown in May.

As my wife is a DTV holder and so is the elder son, they got their bank accounts frozen and shut down later. That happened in April-May this year.

What makes our case even “better” is that payment cards issued in our country don’t really work overseas.

So what worked for the family and working so far is the use of cambodian bank account, which has Thai QR and is crypto friendly with cash payments plus cash payments (cash is king in Thailand).

We use 2 banks that are owned by international groups, which makes me less worried about the funds there and that issue proper Mastercard/Visa that work globally.

All bigger payments (school fees and other significant transfer) can be done by instant transfer to a Thai account. But it costs $15 per transaction.

Smaller purchases are working through QR-payments to legal vendors.

The issue still persists with smaller transfers or payments to mamas and papas shops. Here they use cash or ask me to pay 😂.

Hope this helps and also hope it won’t deteriorate as quickly as Thai banking system accessibility in the past 3 years.