Thai Banks have now imposed significant fees for tourists withdrawing foreign funds from ATMs while travelling in Thailand. Make sure you minimise your ATM use to avoid spending more than you bargained for.
According to the Thanachart website, The Thai Bankers Association has decided that cardholders of foreign banks will be charged 150 Baht for each withdrawal by debit or credit card. This was effective from April 17th so is now already in place.
150 Baht is a significant fee – at current exchange rates, it’s nearly 3 British Pounds or $5 US Dollars. You definitely want to plan your ATM withdrawals so you can avoid paying this fee any more times than necessary.
If you go to a foreign exchange booth with your VISA card and passport and withdraw money over the counter, that would be one way of avoiding the ATM charge.
And on a related note, the Nationwide Building Society whose Flex Debit Card I recommended previously as the best UK bank account for travelling as they had a long standing policy of not charging for ATM withdrawals are about to reverse their policy. From May 6th they will be charging 0.84 per cent on ATM transactions and from July 1st they will be charging 1 per cent on ATM transactions made overseas. See the Nationwide website for full info.
This is a real shame – it was the main reason I banked with Nationwide. I’ll be looking around for other banking options to access my UK funds from Thailand.
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