1.5% may not seem like a lot – but go ahead and check what a normal savings/term deposit gives you in a main stream bank “back home”. I have and guess what ? They aren’t offering any better and the “boutique” banks (smaller banks, fewer branches, desperate for customers) that may offer higher rates usually havea catch (of course) and if you don’t meet the conditions, you end up with the same, lower rate that the “big” banks offer.
(I’m not talking RRSPs and “locked in” investments or other BS that gives higher returns but you CAN’T access the money to live on if need be.)
1.5% on a Fixed Term deposit at Bangkok Bank gives you 12,000 baht interest per year (on a deposit of 800K), less 2,000(+/-) in taxes.
That leaves about 10,000 baht which is more than enough to pay for your yearly extension and a new multi re-entry permit (if needed).
No hassles, no transfer fees, no exchange rate worries. (Bangkok Bank has finally created a Fixed term account that “auto-renews” every year – at the same rate (1.5%) so there’s even less hassle than before.)
The Krungsri info shows that they offer a lower rate on terms under thirty-six months, but a higher rate for a forty-eight month term. At 2.15% per annum (on a 800K deposit), that would work out to just over 17,000 in interest per year. That’s about 5,000 in interest more than the Bangkok Bank 1 year account.
Minus taxes (15 or 20 % I think ? I get dinged 20% it seems) leaves you about13,500 baht. Take off the 1,ninety0 baht for your extension and you’d still have over 11000 baht left over. Bonus of not having to renew the term every few months or every year.
Jomtien accepts Fixed Term Deposits (as long as the money has been there the correct amount of time) and doesn’t require any transactions on the account (other than the passbook update the day before applying for the extension).
I’m guessing they know that if you needed the money, you could get it easily (but would lose the interest or get a decreased amount).
However, as always, every Immigration office has it’s own rules so you need to verify with your local office.
Also note – some banks (like Bangkok Bank) may have “promotional” rates for Fixed Term deposits. For example, the staff at my local branch would keep getting me to open”promotional rate” Fixed Term accounts that ran for 7 or 11 months (no idea why they used those lengths).
The interest rates were better (about 1.seventy-five% I think ?) than the normal rate (of 1.00%) – but only for the period of the promotion. When the period ended, you got your interest and then the rate dropped to the regular 1%. Then you’d have to open a new account to get a new “promotional” rate for another 7 (or 11) months.
Also – you have to read the fine print. The “promotional” rate is (usually)1.seventy-five% “per annum” – not “per promotional period”. So you are not getting 1.seventy-five% on your 7 (or 11) month deposit, you are getting 7 (or 11) months worth of what you’d get if the money was on deposit – at that rate – for a whole year. (At 1.00%, you’d earn 8,000 in interest over a year (less taxes). At 1.seventy-five% on the same amount, you’d earn 14,000 (before taxes).
But as the promotional term is (7 or 11) months, you’d only get (8,1sixty-six or 12,8thirty-three) before taxes. Better than leaving the money in a normalsavings account obviously, as long as you are willing to go through the hassles of opening/closing accounts every few months.
(Not sure why they can’t just use the same account and change the terms. I have a binder full of old passbooks from every time I had to open a new one, transfer the money from the old one, then close the old one. And it’s a stack of paperwork everytime – in addition to the requisite passport photocopies of course.)
So you’d get more interest, but with the extra hassle of having to open a new account (or accounts) every few months and closing the old one and making sure you had one that would be at least 3 months old before your next extension. For some people, the few thousand baht extra may be worth the hassle.
Now I have to trundle off to my bank to see if they have 4 year terms that offer better interest thanKrungsri apparently does ! 5,000 more per year over 4 years = an extra 20K. (For doing nothing at all.)
Nothing wrong with that !