Facial identification for transfers over 50,000 baht in Thai banks

From July 4, 2023, new rules for making money transfers in excess of 50,000 at a time came into force in Thailand.

Now, to make transfers over 50,000 baht at a time, or 200,000 baht per day, you need to go through face verification.

In English, Thai banks call this verification “Facial Identity Verification” and “Facial recognition”.

This note tells about the features of face verification in various Thai banks, as well as what you need to do in order to be able to transfer more than 50,000 baht at a time or 200,000 baht per day.

The law is one, but each bank understands it differently

First of all, it should be noted that each bank interprets the law in its own way somehow.

For example, Krungsri Bank invites everyone (Thais and foreigners) to bank branches so that they can take a photo of you for subsequent verification by face. The office prepares documents for Facial Identity Verification without alternative.

SCB claims that the Facial recognition rules are only mandatory for Thais. A foreigner can come to an SCB bank branch and have 2 options to choose from:

1) activate “Facial recognition”

2) write a statement of refusal to participate in “Facial recognition”. If I understand correctly, in this case there is still the possibility for transfers over 50,000 baht at a time.

Kasikorn Bank immediately explained that this law does not apply to foreigners at all. You don't need to enable “Facial Identity Verification” or even write a disclaimer.

Krungsri showed a “Facial Identity Verification” notification in the app, and SCB sent an email with the notification.

Bangkok Bank did not send any warnings or notifications, but when I went to the bank branch, like Krungsri, without further ado, took a photo of me and connected Facial Identity Verification.

Have you assessed the range of interpretations of the new law?

By the way, if you carefully read the previous messages from banks, you might have noticed that in one of them the date of entry into force of the new rules is June 27, and in the other – July 4.

Therefore, your specific experience with Facial Identity Verification activation may differ from that described in this note. Moreover, this may depend both on the bank and on the region of Thailand in which you activate Facial Identity Verification. It may even depend on a specific branch or manager.

If you have already lived in Thailand for some time, I think you are not even surprised. Similar confusion is observed in opening a bank account and even in the interpretation of visa rules, which are supposedly different in each Immigration office.

How to activate “Facial Identity Verification” (“Facial recognition”) in a Thai bank

You need to come with a passport to any branch of the bank.

Explain that you want to enable “Facial Identity Verification” (“Facial recognition”).

A bank employee will take your photo, as well as a photocopy of your passport.

You will need to sign on paper copies of documents.

That's all!

If there is no queue, then turning on “Facial Identity Verification” (“Facial recognition”) takes just a few minutes.

Is it necessary to activate “Facial Identity Verification” (“Facial recognition”)

If you are not going to make money transfers in the amount of 50,000 baht at a time or 200,000 baht per day, then apparently it is not necessary to activate Facial Identity Verification.

In preparing this article, I asked my Thai wife what experience she had with Facial Identity Verification and if she could add something.

It turned out that she did not activate “Facial Identity Verification” in any bank and in general she learned about this new law from me… Well, that is, without “Facial Identity Verification” you can live and even continue to use Thai bank accounts as before.