Last week one of our Student visa applications, after a three-month wait, was finally granted — the student will soon commence studies at the Australian National University. This was yet another case where the Department requested additional evidence on source of funds.

Today’s topic is exactly that — the [new trend] in Student visa processing: requests for additional source-of-funds evidence.

We call it a “new trend” from the applicant’s perspective. From our side, handling a high volume of Student visa applications every day and every week, these requests have become very common. In our conversations with students and parents we keep seeing the same questions come up, so today we’re going to answer them.

Since last year, when lodging an Australian Student visareceiving a request for further evidence of funds has become more and more common.When people receive a request letter like this, many applicants are a little frightened when they see it — “Is there something extra wrong with my application? Was there a gap in the financial evidence I submitted? How should I prepare?”

Receiving a source-of-funds request — in some ways, is it actually good news?

ENTERPRISE

First thing to say: don’t panic the moment you see this letter and assume that your financial evidence has a major problem, or that the Department is singling you out for extra scrutiny, In reality, receiving this letter shows that the case officer has already reviewed your other documents — such as your Genuine Student (GS) statement — and found no issues with them.

It’s simply that in recent years Australia has been cracking down hard on the misuse of Student visas for work, so requests for source-of-funds evidence have become routine. At the core, the Department wants to confirm that the deposit you’ve shown really is your own money, or the money of your financial sponsor. And, crucially, that it comes from a long-term, stable, legitimate source.

So a standalone deposit balance is not enough — you also need to provide the past 6–12 months of transaction history for the account holding those funds, and evidence of how the money was earned. The most common sources are business income, salary, or investment returns, and the like.

Question 1

My RMB 500,000 deposit certificate — is it OK to pull it together by borrowing from relatives and friends?

If the Department doesn’t come back asking for more evidence, you might be fine. But if you do get a request — like the one pictured above — the transaction history and origin of that RMB 500,000 becomes very hard to explain. Once the Department pulls the statements, they can see multiple deposits landing in the account just before the visa was lodged, and they will press for further explanation. We’ve seen cases where applicants borrowed RMB 600,000 from relatives, parked it in the account, got hit with a request, tried to talk their way through it, and were refused outright. That pattern is extremely common.

Question 2

ENTERPRISE

Is it enough just to prove where the deposit came from? For example, I already have RMB 500,000 or RMB 1,000,000 in savings — surely that’s more than enough to cover my child’s next 1–2 years?

No. Your deposit is only one part of the source-of-funds picture. The Department also needs to assess whether you have an ongoing annual income — in other words, whether there is continuing income able to support the applicant. Your existing savings speak to your past; they don’t guarantee that, during your child’s time in Australia, those funds won’t be redirected to other uses. 

Question 3

ENTERPRISE

If I start building up the account transaction history right now, is there still time? Say, over 6–12 months?

If that means “attaching” to someone else’s account or fabricating records, we strongly urge you to be very careful. The Department dislikes fraud far more than it dislikes applicants who simply don’t have enough funds.Australian Student visa processing now leans heavily on phone verification. We’ve seen students who weren’t upfront with us — they didn’t tell us, for instance, that their parents were only nominally attached to an employer for medical and social-security purposes. The Department then phoned the employer, and also phoned the parents directly. The two sides gave inconsistent answers, the story fell apart, and the result was a PIC 4020 “providing false or misleading information” finding — and a three-year bar on most further Australian visa applications.

When we handle course applications and Student visas for our clients, we prepare every file to a 120% standard. We’ve also responded to a large number of source-of-funds requests on behalf of students and secured successful grants. If you need assistance in this area, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.