It doesn't, but the same people will then complain about dual pricing in Thailand. It makes me ROFL how they can justify handing over 20,000 baht for nothing, and then meltdown over 300 baht!
Agents pay the bribes to open accounts, so what do you think? And the agents paying 800k into an account, getting a certificate of account balance, and withdrawing it five minutes later. Do you really need to ask that question?
But a lot of those expats are also to blame. For using agents to bypass financial requirements attached to their visas. Those who are whining now should STFU, they helped cause the problem
It's the "considerable discretion" which caused this problem in the first place. Don't blame your local branch manager for now refusing that discretion. He perhaps values his job, even if you don't