Tourism what are they thinking?

[mike williams]

The tourism industry is dead because Thailand has acted towards its tourists in an arrogant, indifferent take it or leave it attitude for years and the chickens are now coming home to roost.
Higher charges for tourists over locals gets people angry, the new visa rules for people arriving by land ie only 15 days has forced people to stay away, the proposed alcohol rules for Songkran did not help either and the recent riots was the final nail in the coffin for Thai tourism.
I am married to a Thai and have lived here for 4 years and in 2 of those years I have been forced to renew my visa in my home county as the visa rules changed, total cost to me for the trips to the UK 155,000 baht just to renew my visa.
Thailand is now getting a long overdue wake up call so here is my advice, start making visa's easier to get and stop treating tourists and expats as walking wallets, a tourism worker gets paid 100,000 baht a year, I spend in excess of 600,000 baht a year but am treated as a second class citizen, get your act together Thailand and start showing tourists and expats that you value them.

[Git]

Contimuing on with the fairness of the banking system to foreigners here. Where else can you be required to tie up 400K or 800K for years and never recieve one stang in interest, for year afer year. Actually I thought the banks had a pretty good deal going on. Use of othes money with zero cost.

Th is strange pace nothing seems to work together in a common goal. It's me and to heck with all the others. Will this create money for the banks yes But, will it fill one more hotel room, rent one more taxi, purchase one more gift from Thailand NO.

Try to get money into the local economy wanlt that the idea. Then the next thing we see a tax on fuel. That will drive up the cost of everything that I moved. I understand the need for additional taxes. But, now is time or after the recovery which seems to really be some ways down the road.

So maybe we shouldn't be surprised that the banks are taking care of he bank. Odd though I seem to remember reading that in Thailand a litle six months ago there was no financial crisis in Thailand That being the case it seems to me it would bettre for the country to get those fees in the form of purchases into the hands of consumers. Not banks who have said all along they don't need it.

The banks position forgot to mention the reason ATM's became in wide use was it was good for the banks and more cost effective. Then having to pay a person to do the same thing. I would not have said one word had they increased the chargesd in a reaonable manner. But ,that is not what they did.

My first with drawel fee was credited back to my account, so th next thing you see it is factored into the rate of exchange so It's paid. I think waht irritates most of us is to not be treated in the same manner a a ciizen here. We already pay extra fo visa fees prove that we do have money to live here not once but year after year. all of which is not free.

Thailand is my home and I enjoy it here adn I will pay what I have to pay to stay here simple as that. But, that doesn't mean i have to like it. It doesn't when asked I won't give my best honest answer when I'm asked. The world is full of baby boomes they got to retire somewhere. Wherever place is the money they worked for for all those years go with them. Only logically thought to go where that money serves best for a good retirement. Seven years ago I would have put Thailand high on that list. I'm not going anywhere, but if asked knowing what I now know about being an expat. I beleive I would tell people to look for a place more user friendly

[Sean Moran]

"Hear, all ye good people, hear what this brilliant and eloquent speaker has to say!"
I tried Thailand for seven years too and left for civilised English speaking Malaysia where I am welcome under the MM2H programme to drink the "Last of the Summer Wine" in peace

My ex-girlfriend's ex-husband lives down there. He seems to have fairly good taste in women so I guess he might have a knack with the other lifestyle necessities such as location, location, location. They say the motorbikes are much bigger too. Do you think that this larger engine displacement allowance should be implemented on Phuket to help wayward semi-professionals deal with the local truck hazards?

[stilljustbrowsing]

There are good and bad places in most countries. I find some generalisations made by some posters here to be somewhat insulting, nevermind, each to their own I suppose.
London is not England, to see the real England get out of London. It is the same in most countries. Bangkok is not representative of Thailand, outside of the "usual tourist traps", there are some lovely places to see and people (Thai) to meet.
Would one take the family to the red light district in Amsterdam, for example? It is about time some people got real.

[foreignerworkinbkk]

Allow me to shed some light on all your confusions on this new 150 baht ATM fee for Overseas Card Cash Withdrawals. I am a foreigner working in one of the major Thai banks and I have been involved in the whole decision-making process to levy this new charges.

One thing I must clear up with everyone here is that this is not a govt initiative and this is purely a collective business decision by all thai banks who have ATMs all over the Kingdom.

The next important thing I would like you to know is that this was not an easy decision and the impact has been thoroughly analyzed. Unfortunately we have come to a conclusion to start charging this new fee as a result of VISA imposing new clearing charges on all banks for overseas card transactions on 17 April 2009. Hence the new ATM fee was effected by most thai banks.

A quick background of what really happened:

- Thai banks have been absorbing processing losses from overseas card cash withdrawals since last year Sep when MasterCard decided to impose 2 new processing costs, on top of the existing fixed price cost. So for any withdrawal above 8,000 baht, Thai banks suffered processing losses due to these 3 tier processing charges by MasterCard.

- Thai banks (known as acquirer banks) enjoy a fixed interchange fee income of US$1.25 from MasterCard and US$1.00 from VISA. The settlement of this interchange fee is based on the FX rate quoted by VISA and MasterCard.

- The new tiered costs levied by MasterCard and VISA (effective 17 Apr 09) however means that all withdrawals will be subjected to a bp calculation of the amount withdrew. Hence even with the interchange income, the higher the withdrawal amount, the higher the processing cost by MasterCard and VISA that the banks have to pay. Eventually any amounts above 8,000 baht means the banks paying settlement costs to VISA and MasterCard and not earning from these transactions.

- All the thai banks have discussed this issue for a long time (since last year) and Thai Bankers Assoc (TBA) was reluctant to impose any fee on overseas cards cash withdrawals in fear of the backlash by foreigners. However with VISA joining MasterCard to impose the new 2-tier processing charges, all the thai banks have no choice but to pressure TBA to consider approving the charging of this new ATM fee. Initially the fee amount proposed was 200 baht, but after much discussion among all members, it was lowered to 150 baht.

- The processing cost charged by VISA and MasterCard is on average about 85-90 baht per overseas card transaction and the interchange fee income will be 50% less if banks charges customers a usage fee. So in truth, while the banks and TBA have been criticised for this new fee, it is VISA and MasterCard that is quietly laughing away as they are the real culprits of this whole fiasco.

- At this moment, almost all banks have started charging this new 150 baht fee. The only banks not charging yet have decided to charge soon (by end May). UOB will be charging soon. BAY will be charging once they comply with the mandatory 30-days announcement period.

So please understand that this is a collective business decision that thai banks have to make and it is not discriminating since this new fee is a consequence of having to run a business without making operating losses to support foreigner cards ATM transactions in Thailand. MasterCard and VISA should lower their processing charges to banks if this fee is to be lowered.

Foreigner working in BKK.

[Ian]

So why are they charging for all cards, instead of just mastercard and Visa, why am I charged for example if I use Maestro?

[foreignerworkinbkk]

You'll get very little sympathy here, mate, banks and bankers reputations are at an alltime low worldwide and their senior staff on a par with timeshare and door-to-door double glazing salesmen
When a business is faced with higher operating costs it has two choices - either cut it's own overheads or pass the increases on and risk upsetting customers and losing even more business I don't see banks anywhere especially in Thailand doing the former and, by implementing the latter, they will definitely lose business and will eventually have to do the former. I got news for you, mate, no one likes banks there are far too many of them, they are not proper businesses and they contribute very little if anything and take a lot out of the economy for their own benefit
When your employer eventually comes to the inevitable conclusion that staff have to go and premises have to close I hope you enjoy being one of the many millions unemployed as the result of genuine business failures

Frankly I don't give a damn whether you like or do not like banks...I honestly think you are really sad...I am simply sharing with you what went on and you cursed me to be one of the unemployed. Anyway I really don't bother about your unconstructive comment when everyone here is trying to clear the air. Nevertheless you hate banks and bankers alike...but like it or not, banking is part of everyone's daily lifestyle needs....you will need an ATM to make a cash withdrawal. Good luck to your pathetic life, my friend.

[Sean Moran]

Personally, FWIBKK, I appreciate the detailed info. I've always used my local savings account when I go tourist, and so it's Cirrus-Maestro all the way. Cost around $6.00 AUD in 2006, which is not a problem if I think that they charge $2 or $3 for the transaction fee if I go to the wrong ATM at my locak shopping mall and try to withdraw 10,000 thb. I've never had a mastercard or a visa, but now I understand why everyone's up in arms about it.

[foreignerworkinbkk]

So why are they charging for all cards, instead of just mastercard and Visa, why am I charged for example if I use Maestro?

As long as your card requires to pass through Maestro or Cirrus network to be routed to your issuing bank's authorization system, the 150 baht fee will be imposed. This is because of this cross-border processing charges that has caused the losses suffered by Thai banks to support overseas cards cash withdrawals.

In fact, the rule set by MasterCard and VISA themselves is that we cannot charge locally issued cards (Thai cards). We are however allowed to charge overseas cards. We are experiencing issues right now with some local Thai cards issued by GE (Central credit card), Capital OK, Aeon and Payment Solutions. These cards are issued by non-banks (finance companies) and they don't have ATMs but allow their customers to make cash advances via the Maestro and Cirrus networks. These transactions get routed out to Mastercard/VISA authroization system for verification before routing them to the issuer's authorization system, We also charge these local cards 150 baht and MasterCard is requesting that we stop this charging while MasterCard continues to charge us the high processing costs for these local cards.

In conclusion, MasterCard and VISA set the rules. They allowed all Thai banks to charge overseas cards cash withdrawals in Thailand as they understand the high cross-border processing costs levied on us by them.

Now they are requesting the Thai banks to lower the fee charged to the customers by offering a tiered interchange fee income for different amounts withdrawn.

My point is what happened relating to the ATM fee of 150 baht is a consequence of the greed of MasterCard and VISA, and not a revenue that Thai banks want to make, as some of you mistakenly pointed out. If we don't charge a fee, we bear the losses from these high processing charges by MasterCard and VISA for every overseas card transaction at our ATM.

[foreignerworkinbkk]

I will try my best to keep all of you here updated on the developments of this fiasco. There may be changes to the amount of fee charged...maybe lowering to 100 baht per transaction.

We are also considering charging a fee only for certain withdrawal amounts (example if you withdraw 5000 baht and below, no fee is charged). Maybe a tier-fee charging could be possible.

If you really need to make a cash withdrawal using your overseas card before June, go to ATMs from UOB or BAY. They have yet to implement this new ATM fee charges.