PayPal canceling personal accounts in Thailand

Anything and everything about Thailand
Post Reply
User avatar
Gaybutton
Posts: 21458
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 11:21 am
Location: Thailand
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 1305 times

PayPal canceling personal accounts in Thailand

Post by Gaybutton »

That is actually somewhat misleading. Many farang send money to whoever in Thailand via PayPal. This does not mean you will no longer be able to do so or your recipient will no longer be able to retrieve money. Some fairly simple changes will need to be made.
_________________________________

PayPal is cancelling personal accounts in Thailand from next year

by Jonathan Fairfield

November 12, 2021

PayPal will no longer be available to the vast majority of people in Thailand from February 2022.

PayPal recently announced that anyone in Thailand who set up a personal account before March 2021, will no longer be able to receive payments or even have a balance on their account from February 2022.

“PayPal is preparing to relaunch services in Thailand. If your account was opened prior to March 7, 2021, you will need to take some action to continue using your account in Thailand, the company says on its website.

The move essentially means that as of February next year, PayPal will no longer be available to customers with personal accounts in Thailand.

For people who rely on PayPal to receive payments from overseas, they will no longer be able to do so without a registered business account.

Online teachers, freelance workers, digital nomads or even people in Thailand who use PayPal to receive money from friends and family overseas will have to find an alternative.

In order to get a registered business account, people will need to be registered via the Thai government’s Know Your Business (KYB) scheme.

Registration for a business account requires applicants to submit their 13 digit registration number, as well as the identification documents of all company shareholders with more than 25% stake in the company. In addition, anyone who is authorised to use said business account is also required to submit their identification documents.

Furthermore, business accounts will then be charged 7% VAT on all transactions, while domestic transactions can only be made in Thai baht and must be linked to a Thai bank account.

Business customers will also no longer be able to transfer money bank accounts in the United States.

The move has come about after the Thai government overhauled regulation of the country’s fintech sector.

This means that PayPal has been forced to adhere to a new regulatory framework in order to be able to operate in Thailand.

However, speculation online says the move is to do with Thailand cracking down on money laundering.

Last year PayPal announced it was no longer accepting new registrations for accounts from people in Thailand.

https://aseannow.com/topic/1239126-payp ... next-year/

For instructions what to do, see: https://www.paypal.com/th/webapps/mpp/t ... le.x=en_TH
Jun

Re: PayPal canceling personal accounts in Thailand

Post by Jun »

Paypal sucks. I expect you can probably find a better company to process payments.

They are greedy, dishonest and the website is terrible.

I once sent a modest donation to someone with another Paypal account after a hurricane. Paypal charged a fee for sending the money and offered a poor exchange rate. The statement told me how much he would receive. I later found out that he received considerably less, as the ****s at Paypal levied yet another charge for receiving the money. Into a PAYPAL account.
A lot of work is required to find the total end to end cost of an international transfer in advance.
Compare with Transferwise, where it's there when you get the quotation.

If you need customer service, just forget it as they are in India and worse than useless.

A few months ago, the Paypal statement started showing every transaction 3 times - the usual debit, plus some additional credit and debit, corresponding to some kind of internal transfer that the customer has no interest in following. There is a filter that is supposedly capable of generating a statement without this, but that doesn't work either.
Their customer service people don't see the problem.
I responded by loading my credit card number onto ebay and haven't used Paypal since (so far).
User avatar
Gaybutton
Posts: 21458
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 11:21 am
Location: Thailand
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 1305 times

Re: PayPal canceling personal accounts in Thailand

Post by Gaybutton »

If I remember correctly, I think Western Union does that too - a fee for sending and another fee for receiving - with miserable exchange rates.
catawampuscat
Posts: 630
Joined: Sun Aug 01, 2010 7:10 am
Has thanked: 42 times
Been thanked: 23 times

Re: PayPal canceling personal accounts in Thailand

Post by catawampuscat »

My worst experience was dealing with Moneygram. Grade D Indian customer service with frequent hang ups and they refuse
to go off their written scripts and answer a question. Asking to speak with a representative who can speak English clearly or
asking to speak to a supervisor results in a disconnection. They closed my account when I got frustrated and angry
Never ever use Moneygram!!
User avatar
Gaybutton
Posts: 21458
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 11:21 am
Location: Thailand
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 1305 times

Re: PayPal canceling personal accounts in Thailand

Post by Gaybutton »

Next question: What money transfer service would you recommend using?
Jun

Re: PayPal canceling personal accounts in Thailand

Post by Jun »

Transferwise

I tried using banks and they took over 3% of my money.

I tried setting up accounts with a couple of branded independent payment companies. I should have known better, as any company that advertises better rates, but requires you to set up an account BEFORE telling you what the rates are has the attitude of scammers.
One offered me a rate in the 1~2% range for the first transfer and not as good afterwards. I closed the account.
Another one offered poor rates. One of their agents called me and managed to offer a sensible rate for a transfer. I never got that rate again, so never used them again.

Then Christian PFC suggested Transferwise. That costs me about 0.5~0.6% and at times, the money moves so fast it's already in my account before I can log in to check.

I tend to regard any exchange rate that's not in the 0.5% ballpark as too expensive.
It can also be possible to get down to 0.5% on cash exchanges, as I've found in Bangkok.
The best stockbrokers tend to charge around 0.5% on forex, whereas the greedy ones take 1.5~2%.

(All percentages refer to loss on a one way transaction compared with mid-market).
User avatar
2lz2p
Posts: 957
Joined: Sun Aug 01, 2010 8:08 am
Location: Pattaya, Thailand (Jomtien)
Has thanked: 148 times
Been thanked: 108 times

Re: PayPal canceling personal accounts in Thailand

Post by 2lz2p »

Jun wrote: Sat Nov 13, 2021 4:27 pm Transferwise

Then Christian PFC suggested Transferwise. That costs me about 0.5~0.6% and at times, the money moves so fast it's already in my account before I can log in to check.
I agree, Transferwise (now Wise) is a very good service IF you are not using the 65k monthly income to qualify with Immigration for retirement renewal extension and you have a Bangkok Bank account. The recent problem with such transfers is the subject of another thread on this message board - viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10784
billyhouston
Posts: 127
Joined: Sun Aug 01, 2010 5:16 am
Location: Chiang Mai
Has thanked: 38 times
Been thanked: 16 times

Re: PayPal canceling personal accounts in Thailand

Post by billyhouston »

I very much agree that Wise (formerly Transferwise) are excellent. While I do not use the 65K monthly income route and use 800K instead, I do have a Kasikorn account and any transfer is listed as 'Trade finance'. What that means, from the 65K point of view, I have no idea. The transfer, since my UK account is already set up to pay Wise, can be very quick indeed. About a minute from opening the Wise app. to the Baht hitting my K-Bank a/c.
Post Reply