Making the most of the British Pound

Towards the end of January 2009 the British pound declined to it’s lowest level against the baht so far this century, just over 47 baht on a Telex Transer (TT) and just under 47 baht for cash exchanged at a Thai bank…. and some analysts at that time reckoned it had further to fall.

The pound has been losing ground since September 2007 when the government announced a £2 billion emergency loan to Northern Rock Bank, but a series of further announcements to prop up the troubled banking sector has caused the pound to tumble against a range of foreign currencies. According to many analysts, for example see the article from marketoracle.co.uk, it will fall quite a bit further still, soon being worth far less than the Euro and no more than equal to the dollar.

So why is this relevant to our site? The outlook for the British pound is perhaps not great, but it has shown some recent recovery, from the lows of 47 against the baht in early 2009 to just over 55 baht to the pound at the time of writing. For those Brits looking to retire in Thailand’s tropical paradise, this represents somewhat of a buying opportunity in that the pound seems at least for the time being to have clawed back some of its strength once more. How long this may last is very difficult to predict, but any such positive move for the pound will make a big difference when transferring relatively large sums of money to Thailand for property purchase.