INBOUND TRANSFERS — PROVIDER REVIEW
OFX (formerly OzForex) has been moving money internationally since 1998 — older than Wise, older than WorldRemit, and built around one feature that matters a lot to readers of this site.
It does not have Wise’s slick app or WorldRemit’s cash-pickup network. What it has is no cap on how much you can send in a single transfer — which makes it one of the few tools here actually built for a retirement-visa lump sum or a condo purchase, not just a small family remittance.
AT A GLANCE
Best for: large, one-off transfers — retirement visa funding (the ฿800,000 lump sum), condo purchases, repatriating savings. Not the obvious choice for: small recurring family remittances (no cash-pickup option) or GBP senders specifically, where the rate advantage is less clear.
OFX does not charge a transfer fee on most accounts — the same “we make money on the spread” model most competitors use. Thai banks still deduct their own receiving fee on the way in, since OFX pays out via SWIFT: typically 0.25% of the transfer, with a floor of ฿200 and a cap of ฿500. That is not an OFX charge, but it is real money that leaves your transfer before it lands.
Rate quality is mixed by currency. Multiple forum reports describe OFX as genuinely competitive on USD–THB — the pair most readers here care about. GBP–THB is a different story: one detailed comparison found OFX came out roughly ฿1,400 worse than Wise on a £2,000 transfer. If you are sending pounds rather than dollars, get a live quote before assuming OFX’s USD reputation carries over.
OFX advertises 1–2 business days once they have your funds. In practice, US senders funding by ACH (bank debit) report a 3-business-day hold before that clock even starts, plus setup steps — so the realistic timeline is closer to 4–5 business days, not 1–2. Funding by wire instead of ACH gets you closer to the advertised speed.
One more scheduling quirk: OFX cannot quote a live USD–THB rate outside Thai business hours (roughly 9am–5pm Thailand time, weekdays) — the pair does not trade enough outside that window for them to price it. Initiate late at night your time and you may simply have to wait for the Bangkok market to open.
WORTH KNOWING
One detailed forum account describes OFX changing its transfer routing to go through Deutsche Bank, which caused a transfer to arrive at Bangkok Bank coded as a local-style transfer rather than a foreign one — the exact code Thai Immigration looks for as proof funds came from abroad. Bangkok Bank could issue a supplementary statement confirming the foreign origin, for a small fee, but it took about a week to produce.
This is a single well-documented report, not a universal pattern — but the stakes (a visa extension appointment) are high enough that it is worth a five-minute confirmation call to your receiving bank rather than assuming it will not happen to you. If you are timing an OFX transfer against a retirement or marriage visa deadline, build in that week of buffer.
OFX states plainly that it enforces no maximum transfer amount — the only ceiling is whatever your own bank allows on its end. That is the headline reason OFX earns a place on this site despite lighter brand recognition than Wise: it can actually handle an ฿800,000 retirement-visa lump sum or a full condo purchase price in one transfer, rather than forcing you to split it up the way a provider with a hard cap would.
OFX pays directly into accounts at Thailand’s major banks — Bangkok Bank, Krungthai Bank, Siam Commercial Bank, and Kasikornbank are all confirmed as supported destinations.
If you are moving a large, one-off sum — visa funding, a condo purchase, repatriating savings when you leave Thailand for good — OFX’s lack of a transfer cap makes it one of the few tools on this site actually built for that job. Fund by wire rather than ACH if speed matters, confirm your transfer’s documentation with your bank if you are using it as visa evidence, and get a live quote before assuming its USD-strength rates carry over to GBP.