On opening a new Thai Brokerage Account.

Do not wire the funds first to your Thai bank and then to your broker.

The reason is that when you want to repatriate your capital and profits, the Thai broker must have the proper import of capital documentations.  It must be shown to the Bank of Thailand that these funds came from abroad to begin with. Then, sending funds back to your own named overseas account should never be an issue.

When wiring back the funds overseas, using your Thai bank can create delays and unnecessary headaches. This is the key: You can repatriate funds and capital gains back anytime without any tax consequences, as long as you are an individual.  I do not advocate corporate accounts when it comes to owning Thai shares. Commissions are usually 0.25% on each side of the trade; online trading commissions are as low as 0.15%.  Minimum account levels can also be very low: approximately $10,000, Tisco and Bualuang may require more?   I do not advocate margin trading, in the past this was not handled credibly, meaning forced sells were not implemented resulting in huge customer losses in '97 and '98.

Try to establish what is called an ATS account (Automatic Transfer System) that way all your buy/sell trades settle through your own Thai Bank savings account. This is preferable, as the local bank then holds your idle funds -not the brokers. You so earn some small interest on your Bank savings account and have full access to your funds through the ATM machines, worldwide. I would advise not to mix your stock trading bank account with your normal bank savings account, as otherwise you may well get confused by mixing all activity together. The just described preferred method requires you to be on location at least once, so to set up the Thai Bank account.If you wire funds from overseas, wire these to your broker directly, after you opened your account there.

Best Regards,

Paul Renaud
www.Thaistocks.com

We value any comments, questions and concerns, our email address is: paulren@thaistocks.com