Leaving aside the issue of whether it's wise to do so, another way to diversify into Thai stock would be to buy the iShares Thailand ETF which tacks Thailand's MSCI Index and trades the New York stock Exchange under the symbol THD.

Also, this might be somewhat of function of an individuals finanvislvdituatopn too. What makes sense for someone is just scraping by might be different than what makes sense for someone who has a couple million dollars in investment accounts in their home country.

@Dan ********

well, that wasn't intended as comprehendive financial advice and I didn't mean to imply that parking a significant amount of money in a bank account anywhere was where the action is. However for the conservative investor there are money market funds outside of Thailand that are currently yielding 4 to 4.5%. By putting money in a Thai bank instead of investing it outside of Thailand it would negate exchange rate risk but with an opportunity cost, and insulation from the effects of exchange rate changes could either work to your advantage or to your detriment depending upon whether the baht strengthens or weakens.

They pay close zero interest, so even if safe it's better to keep the bulk of your money invested in your home country and to transfer money into Thailand only as-needed.

@Christopher **********

not a crime, of course, but if the bank is actively trying to detect whether customers are really living in the UK then being asked for a verification of adress would not be surprising if your charges come primarily from a country other than the UK.

@Andrew *******

after creating a Baht account on Wise, when I try to add Baht to the account the menu shown below comes up. One of the options that you need to select is what currency to pay in (to use to fund the account) and THB is not one of the choices. It seems like Wise will only allow you to fund THB account by exchanging from another currency.

@Andrew *******

OK,but how do you transfer money from a Thai bank account to that Baht account on Wise?

@Andrew *******

I don't see an option in Wise to transfer THB from a Thai bank account, though maybe you could draw it from a Thai debit card.

@Robert *********

maybe that would be a risk if you were carrying a briefcase full of cash when entering the country but there's no risk in a US citizen wiring money into an established account in the US.

@Laurie *****

17K would be 2%. That could be a good deal if the alternative to putting the 800K in a Thai bank would be to invest it outside of Thailand.