News Forum - UK Pensions in Thailand losing up to 20,160 baht a year

[JamesR]

5 hours ago, Benroon said:

You need 12 months of statements in full ie every page and then you need a single statement (for the life of me I can't remember what it's called) again from the bank showing each deposit on one page. However it's not too important you know the name of it as if you tell them it's for immigration they will know exactly what to give you.

In the years I've done it, I've never hit a hitch apart from one year they complained it wasn't sent on the same day each month (roughly) ! (But still allowed it)

Thanks for the info. I will cut and past it and put it with my other immigration notes. 

[Soidog]

49 minutes ago, JamesR said:

I wonder how long ago @Soidog's friend had the problem and was refused the visa, maybe it was before the fix you mentioned above, perhaps he will kindly reply after reading this. 

Yes it was back in October last year when he was refused the extension. However, I have observed the same errors in coding appearing on my Bangkok Bank statements as recently as April this year.

 

A quick update to show this issue. Below is an extract of my Bangkok Bank statement in April this year. The two transactions sent within 90 minutes of each other via Wise and both sent by selecting “Funds for long term stay in Thailand”. As you can see, one shows and International Transfer (acceptable to immigration), while the other shows a transfer from account at another bank (unacceptable to immigration)

Edited May 20, 2022 by Soidog
Additional information

[Benroon]

9 minutes ago, Soidog said:

Yes it was back in October last year when he was refused the extension. However, I have observed the same errors in coding appearing on my Bangkok Bank statements as recently as April this year.

A quick update to show this issue. Below is an extract of my Bangkok Bank statement in April this year. The two transactions sent within 90 minutes of each other via Wise and both sent by selecting “Funds for long term stay in Thailand”. As you can see, one shows and International Transfer (acceptable to immigration), while the other shows a transfer from account at another bank (unacceptable to immigration)

Once I had a question for Wise and to be fair they called me back here - and tbh were very helpful (regarding a house purchase so stressful already) but they sorted everything out.

Did you contact them and ask what happened in that instance ? I've never seen that so would be interested to know. It's obviously to do with the way it is routed to its final destination so maybe it went via a third party ie another bank. That's the only thing I can think of - they do have more than one bank of their own in Thailand but can't remember the other ones name - if they for example sent it to Kasikorn but paid it from their balance at their other bank, I guess that would happen.

[Soidog]

21 minutes ago, Benroon said:

Once I had a question for Wise and to be fair they called me back here - and tbh were very helpful (regarding a house purchase so stressful already) but they sorted everything out.

Did you contact them and ask what happened in that instance ? I've never seen that so would be interested to know. It's obviously to do with the way it is routed to its final destination so maybe it went via a third party ie another bank. That's the only thing I can think of - they do have more than one bank of their own in Thailand but can't remember the other ones name - if they for example sent it to Kasikorn but paid it from their balance at their other bank, I guess that would happen.

Yes I’m in contact with them and initially they said they did not have control over how the intermediary bank (Kasikorn) coded all transactions. I explained that this needed to be 100% accurate. They are now looking in to the transaction, but some weeks on they claim to be waiting for a response from Kasikorn. 
 

A few years ago, transactions would take an hour or more, now they can take seconds. They achieve this by holding money in a local bank and your transaction is paid from the local Wise bank to your bank. This all seems automated given the speed of the transaction. The fact this never happens over a weekend suggests some manual intervention is required? 
 

Whatever the reasons, this flaw, albeit a small percentage, could severely screw up your visa extension if you rely on the 65,000+ Baht per month being sent to Thailand. You could land lucky and it not happen to you. If it does, then what…

[Benroon]

44 minutes ago, Soidog said:

Yes I’m in contact with them and initially they said they did not have control over how the intermediary bank (Kasikorn) coded all transactions. I explained that this needed to be 100% accurate. They are now looking in to the transaction, but some weeks on they claim to be waiting for a response from Kasikorn. 
 

A few years ago, transactions would take an hour or more, now they can take seconds. They achieve this by holding money in a local bank and your transaction is paid from the local Wise bank to your bank. This all seems automated given the speed of the transaction. The fact this never happens over a weekend suggests some manual intervention is required? 
 

Whatever the reasons, this flaw, albeit a small percentage, could severely screw up your visa extension if you rely on the 65,000+ Baht per month being sent to Thailand. You could land lucky and it not happen to you. If it does, then what…

Mine to Bangkok Bank are always next business day at 14:01 - never had a same day transfer. So anything sent Friday I don't get until Monday afternoon. Annoying.

I think the only ones in seconds are the ones sent to the banks Wise have an account with.

The Then what - I guess check each time and if it happens, and you have the cash do it again, do it again but contact them first I guess.

[Soidog]

2 hours ago, Benroon said:

Mine to Bangkok Bank are always next business day at 14:01 - never had a same day transfer. So anything sent Friday I don't get until Monday afternoon. Annoying.

I think the only ones in seconds are the ones sent to the banks Wise have an account with.

The Then what - I guess check each time and if it happens, and you have the cash do it again, do it again but contact them first I guess.

They seem to use Kasikorn and Bangkok Bank for transfers. It seems that when the coding does go wrong, it’s when it’s sent to my Bangkok Bank account via the Kasikorn Wise account. You can see which bank is used for each transaction by selecting the transaction on the Wise App, then selecting Details. Scroll down and select Get a PDF receipt. Page 2 of the PDF shows the bank used. As you can see below, both banks are used. 
 

As for the Then What. That’s really all you can do I send some more money within the month and hope it goes right this time. Not an option for everyone of course. I’ll update this thread as and when I hear anything further from Wise. 

[Stevejm]

On 5/16/2022 at 4:41 PM, stevedom said:

Saying pensioners have a choice where they live is irrelevant & should not be any part of a reason NOT to receive their due annual increases.

I know this is an old thread but nobody seems to have answered the question why pensioners residing in Thailand don’t get increases in pension. The answer is because Thailand doesn’t have a reciprocal social security agreement with UK. Some countries do e.g Philippines which is why I received full credit for paying UK NI contributions when I worked there. The definitive list can be found here.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reciprocal-agreements/reciprocal-agreements

Hope this helps.

[Agudbuk]

Because it is unfair legislation that deprives half a million British pensioners who made their National insurance payments of their full pension.  Example full pension in USA frozen in Canada. 

[Marc26]

On 10/2/2022 at 4:55 AM, Stevejm said:

I know this is an old thread but nobody seems to have answered the question why pensioners residing in Thailand don’t get increases in pension. The answer is because Thailand doesn’t have a reciprocal social security agreement with UK. Some countries do e.g Philippines which is why I received full credit for paying UK NI contributions when I worked there. The definitive list can be found here.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reciprocal-agreements/reciprocal-agreements

Hope this helps.

But if someone worked their whole life in the UK, where would the reciprocal agreement come into play?

 

I've worked half my life in the US and then in Canada

The reciprocal agreement will come into play because it will be a combination of the two

 

The Philippines aren't paying any money towards your UK pension, so why would that matter?

 

 

[Stevejm]

37 minutes ago, Marc26 said:

The Philippines aren't paying any money towards your UK pension, so why would that matter?

I believe that came about so the many Philipinos working in the NHS in UK could preserve their rights to pensions and social services in Philippines when they return after they finish their contracts.

[Stevejm]

1 hour ago, Marc26 said:

The reciprocal agreement will come into play because it will be a combination of the two

The presence of a reciprocal agreement means you can claim contribution credit for the time you worked in USA but it doesn’t mean you will get increases in your pension after you start claiming it. There can be glitches in claiming contributions credit  too. I worked in Australia for a few years at a time when they had a reciprocal SS agreement with UK so I should have received credit for paying NI for those years which I did as confirmed in writing. However some years later the agreement was cancelled and they retrospectively cancelled the credit that I had received previously. That’s what I call unfair!!

For receiving pensions the reciprocal agreement only comes into play if you receive your pension in a country with an agreement in which case you you receive any increases. There are exceptions to this in the list that I linked to namely Japan and Korea have reciprocal agreements but they only apply to contributions credit not to increases in pension. Pension recipients in all countries that don’t have an agreement have frozen pensions as I understand it. Thailand happens to fall into that category.

[Marc26]

23 minutes ago, Stevejm said:

The presence of a reciprocal agreement means you can claim contribution credit for the time you worked in USA but it doesn’t mean you will get increases in your pension after you start claiming it. There can be glitches in claiming contributions credit  too. I worked in Australia for a few years at a time when they had a reciprocal SS agreement with UK so I should have received credit for paying NI for those years which I did as confirmed in writing. However some years later the agreement was cancelled and they retrospectively cancelled the credit that I had received previously. That’s what I call unfair!!

For receiving pensions the reciprocal agreement only comes into play if you receive your pension in a country with an agreement in which case you you receive any increases. There are exceptions to this in the list that I linked to namely Japan and Korea have reciprocal agreements but they only apply to contributions credit not to increases in pension. Pension recipients in all countries that don’t have an agreement have frozen pensions as I understand it. Thailand happens to fall into that category.

Thanks for the explanation

 

 

[oldschooler]

On 5/20/2022 at 1:50 PM, Soidog said:

Yes I’m in contact with them and initially they said they did not have control over how the intermediary bank (Kasikorn) coded all transactions. I explained that this needed to be 100% accurate. They are now looking in to the transaction, but some weeks on they claim to be waiting for a response from Kasikorn. 
 

A few years ago, transactions would take an hour or more, now they can take seconds. They achieve this by holding money in a local bank and your transaction is paid from the local Wise bank to your bank. This all seems automated given the speed of the transaction. The fact this never happens over a weekend suggests some manual intervention is required? 
 

Whatever the reasons, this flaw, albeit a small percentage, could severely screw up your visa extension if you rely on the 65,000+ Baht per month being sent to Thailand. You could land lucky and it not happen to you. If it does, then what…

Would be obliged if I were given a WISE contact phone number to take up an unauthorized debit matter with a human. 

[Soidog]

5 hours ago, oldschooler said:

Would be obliged if I were given a WISE contact phone number to take up an unauthorized debit matter with a human. 

The number I used was a U.K. number on +442036950999. I think they only open phone lines during normal office hours. 

[Faz]

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