The announcement that, beginning of November 15th, users of cash deposit machines (CDMs) would be required to prove their identities via bank cards has caused quite a stir. The Bank of Thailand (BOT) has made it very apparent that this update is essential to enforcing the law.
As the BOT pointed out, this progress conforms to anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism funding regulations. The AML Office proposed the law (AMLO). explain why it’s important to check depositor IDs to avoid fraud and keep money transfers secure.
According to the BOT, those who do not have access to CDM machines due to a lack of a debit card, ATM card, or credit card will still be able to make deposits. The BOT’s Senior Director of Payment Systems Policy, Budsakorn Teerapunyachai, gave some instances of non-bank deposit options. The most common methods include ATM cash withdrawals, cash deposits at convenience stores, money transfers through the Thailand Post, and bank-supported deposit agents. Users of such a system will be asked to provide photo identification before making a deposit.
The BOT will encourage financial institutions to change their CDM machine identification methods to anything other than fingerprints. In either case, this will streamline the process of depositing funds for everyone involved and may even encourage the usage of citizen ID cards or cardless identification.