The vast majority of PayPal users in Thailand will no longer have access to the servicestarting next month unless they complete a variety of verification steps that are only available to Thai citizens. This means that foreigners in the Kingdom will be unable to access personal PayPal accounts from December 15th onwards. The changes are being made to align with the country’s recent crackdown on money laundering which will also see ID Verification become a requirement at cash deposit machines. PayPal representatives said that “under Thai law, they’re obliged to verify the identity of their customers, which helps keep PayPal safe for everyone using it.”

Our Take

I wanted to include this brief story for all of my fellow expats that may be reading this week’s edition of Thailand Weekly. I’m sure many of you have Thai bank accounts and will largely be unaffected, but if you do happen to have an old Thai PayPal account with funds in there, it’s probably best to clear everything out ASAP to be safe. It’d be brutal to have PayPal funds become unaccessible once that key date of December 15th hits.