Country Manuals Private Banking
The Country Manual has been reviewed together with our local counsel to ensure that the content of all the documents remains accurate and up-to-date, and also importantly for Thailand, to ensure that the manual properly reflects an evolving interpretation of the regulatory framework and tolerated market practices.
In view of the foregoing we highlight that Thailand is still a jurisdiction in which foreign banks need to define their individual approach towards the country by taking into account, among others, the cross-border rules as such, the tolerated practices as well as their own risk exposure and risk appetite. In this process, foreign banks may want to consider the following risk-mitigating measures:
– Preferably interacting via remote means of communication from outside of Thailand. Meetings in Thailand should take place on an occasional basis in order to avoid the risk of creating a permanent establishment in Thailand triggering thus licensing requirements;
– Keeping a low profile during onsite visits and managing the frequency and length of visits to Thailand i.e. meet prospects/clients on a one-to-one basis, abstain from holding seminars that could be understood as a mass solicitation etc.;
– Relying on genuine and duly documented reverse enquiries;
– Focussing on qualified prospects/clients;
– Even though Thai laws and regulations do not make a distinction between Thai residents and temporary visitors, there is a tendency of the regulators to have a stronger focus on the protection of the former, especially regarding non-qualified prospects/clients;
– In order to facilitate solicitation/marketing of financial services: considering setting up a representative office following an approval of the Bank of Thailand.
Material changes
As stated above, the manual now includes the more detailed description of the available exemptions for the offering and provision of investment services towards qualified clients in Thailand, which is mostly relevant for activities on-site in Thailand (in view that for activities undertaken on a cross-border basis activities towards qualified clients (either when the bank acts in reliance of an available exemption or in reliance of the tolerated practice of servicing Other Qualified Clients) activities towards this category of clients are already covered by a laxer approach than the one applicable to activities on-site.
Implications for business relations with third parties
There have been no substantial changes to the answers when a foreign bank co-operates with third parties.
Non-material changes
(i) In a number of instances the comments for Grey zone/YES have been changed to reflect standardised comments that BRP has adopted as a result of using a new editing platform for the creation of manuals. In these cases, the underlying reasoning has not changed.
(ii) There are no longer separate answers for witnessing agreements – these are rolled up into assisting a prospect with the signature of an agreement.
(iii) Several comments have been slightly reworded (without introducing material changes) to reflect the regulatory situation/current interpretation of the regulatory framework more accurately.
Regulatory Summary
This document has now a more user-friendly layout and reflects the changes contained in the RT.
Behaviour Template
The answers in the BT have been aligned to those contained in the RT.
BT Short Comparison
BRP has created a comparison document allowing users to quickly identify the modifications made compared to the previous version of the PB Manual (BT Short Comparison). The BT Short Comparison can be found on BRP’s platform (mybrponline) in the Search tab by entering in the Document Field “CM PB BT SHORT COMP” and “THAILAND” in the Target Country Field.
The BT Short Comparison should be read as follows:
The first column contains a short description of the activity in question. The second column contains the answers of the previous version of the Country Manual (online until the day of the alert). The third column contains the new answers of the most recent version of the Country Manual. Only the modified answers are displayed (in color). If the answers in the new version are unchanged compared to the previous version, they are shaded in grey.
Best regards,