Yes. I was merely observing it seems to be a bit of a ridiculous situation.

@Frédéric ****************

I hear you, I get you can't drive on it indefinitely and need to get one in the country of residence but it just seems stupid they can't issue one with an overseas address as a proof of entitlement for vehicle types driven perhaps endorsed not for use outside country of citizenship like they put on visas of foreign nationals in the UK - No recourse to Gov't funds. Instead people have to resort to getting round the rules by providing a false address (which is the obvious way around it...).

@Paul *******

Isn't it ridiculous the lengths you have to go to getting around rules/regs... You'd think in this day and age they'd come up with a better system to keep your uk licence in date since they introduced a limited life span plastic licence? After all you can change your HMRC details to your overseas address so why not drivers licence... 🤷‍♂️

As per the email they sent out advising customers of planned maintenance in advance.

@Steve ******

I'm surprised Bangkok Bank London offer a more favourable rate than Wise or other transfer services. I also just saw on their website they charge a fee of £15- £20?

@Nick ***********

I'm holding on to my Halifax clarity c/c as they don't apply charges when abroad. I will only use my UK debit cards here in Thailand to scrape the ice off the pickup windscreen during the winter.

You mean use my UK bank card to withdraw cash from a Thai ATM? Surely not?

@Bonnie ******

Not quite sure of your point? If you have a visa eg 50+ long stay you need 800k or proof of regular income into a Thai account to qualify for visa renewal. If you have pension/income/savings etc in your home country you need to retain your home account. The shall I call it account for people living overseas from their home country account used to be a link between your current country and home country account so you were more easily connected. For example you get locked out of your account you would have been able to call the bank in country to sort it out not make international calls to do the same. Additionally if you had or wished to make any investments you could also do that in country. No longer.

In my case if I use UK bank cards I would pay the banks crap exchange rate, a foreign exchange/service fee and the ATM fee to the Thai banks. That is not a great way to access your money.

Oh and if you go into your local branch asking questions about overseas accounts/transactions you'll be met with a wall and a fob off of we don't deal with that here you'll have to ring in. Back in July/August and I'm not sure how it is currently but they shut the international department down in the UK (Covid/staffing blah blah), but they still try to put you through to the number which of course nobody answers 🤷‍♂️

So if you ring up do ask the question - is the international dept open or you'll be on hold for a very long time like I was.

I've just made the move and have kept my UK HSBC account for pension/rental income/UK bills. I've just updated my address and phone number to Thai with no real issues, except a message telling me it affects investments/ISA as you aren't a UK resident.

If you don't already I'd suggest you start using/getting familiar with the online application rather than just a phone app as some things you can't do on the app.

As regards transfers, if you use Wise I'd suggest sending a transfer to the 'holding' account within Wise if you think you might use it. I usually transferred straight into my Thai bank account but the first time I tried to send to my holding account HSBC stopped the payment and suspended my account as they viewed it as fraudulent activity. This required a phone call to unlock it again which would be a pain from Thailand.