There’s been a few posts I’ve seen over the past few weeks about this with people struggling to get one, and people smugly going ‘well I got one on a tourist visa at Bangkok bank on Si Lom’ omitting that it was years ago/they paid someone to do it/their Thai friend opened it for them.
So as someone that actually got one with none of the above I thought it might help.
First things first – Bangkok Bank Si Lom changed their policy in April last year, they won’t do it with a tourist visa (at that branch anyway), I’ve physically seen the policy in their big book and it does indeed say that, in theory this should be the same policy across all the branches because this is the head office, and I had visited 5+ beforehand (including with a Thai friend) and it was the same in all of them, you might get lucky in one so feel free to spent all day traipsing around or try the below.
*What you can do:*
Go to k-bank head office on Si Lom
*with the following:*
Thai phone number
Passport (obvs)
Entire Condo rental contract, with the page of your landlords ID card and your passport.
Tm30
Current TR visa printed – this won’t work if your on an exemption or VOA, Needs to be a proper TR.
Letter from your school confirming you have paid for for a course, with your full name and study dates, stamped by the school – this isn’t an invoice by the way, it needs to be a formal letter and it has to match your passport name – this is what made the difference for me.
Passport certification document – your embassy should do this.
*OR*
residency certificate IF your embassy does this – some don’t. If your embassy doesn’t you won’t be able to get one until your 90-day report at Division 1 – you might as well get both if you can because it’s useful to have.
Some money to deposit (I think it’s 200b)
Then if you go in you can open an account, if the banker is unsure because you don’t have an educational visa yet, ask them to call their support line to check, the support line will confirm it’s acceptable provided you have the school letter.
