Jaques2go

my son lives in vientiane with his laos wife and child, hes self employed as hes a musician and teaches and plays all around laos and thailand.
He just tried to open a bank account and they told him he had to have a reference from an employer or they couldnt help him...........is this right?

nonthaburi

Wouldn't know but I'm ' guessing ' things are similar to Thailand and there is a way round everything . It might vary from bank to bank or even branch to branch of the same bank . Has he been round loads of places yet ? Maybe he could get someone with a bit of clout to ' help ' him.

Just going from my own experience of banks in Thailand they often varied quite a lot from place to place and in what they would do for you if they knew you.

Jaques2go

thank you, i think he has only tried a thai bank as he said there are a couple of new laos banks opened in vientiane but hes not sure how safe they might be - i think he might, as you say, speak to one of the places he performs whho may help with a reference. He needs a van to get his equipment around from gig to gig and apparently he cant own one in laos, it seems though hes lived and worked there for 8 years or more, is married to a laos national, he still has to renew his visa every month, the house hes built and paid for he cant own...............its difficult but as i told him, as a musician, you would be hard pushed in England to own a house outright, 5 acres of land and have no mortgage (his wife obviously now owns the land) His son, born in laos, cant be british, or he wont be able to live in laos without the visa every month...........but all in all, i feel in many ways its a lot easier than England (apart from the NHS we have) I guess, like everything in life, there are fors and againsts, you gotta take it as it comes...........

nonthaburi

Phew , that sounds tough . I wouldn't want to be doing a monthly visa run if I was married . I take it there is no marriage visa he can get .

I looked up a link about the son and I think he can be British but whilst in Laos he has to be on his Laos passport as Laos does not recognise other nationalities . Something to think about and probably well worth doing .

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/...lao-passports/

http://thailand-uk.com/forums/showth...al-Nationality

might be something useful in there .

Gaudente

try Acleda http://www.acledabank.com.la/la/eng/index.php

Jaques2go

thank you for the links, i will send those