Risks

Fraud

Fraud is an ongoing issue for INZ Mumbai. It is quite common for false or fake documents to be found in a visa application (e.g. evidence of funds or English language proficiency), and for imposters to be used for an interview with INZ.

Most fraud is driven and enabled by education agents, with the agreement of the applicant. The applicant is responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the documentation included in their application, and must sign a declaration that everything is true and correct.

Indian market education agent approval rates

Financial evidence

All student visa applicants need to demonstrate they have funds available to pay their tuition and living costs while in New Zealand, and that the funds genuinely belong to them or their sponsor. This assures INZ the applicant or their sponsor can comfortably afford to pay for international study, and the funds will genuinely be available to the applicant while they’re in New Zealand.

Immediate family members, such as the applicant’s spouse, parents, siblings, grandparents, and parents-in-law, are considered acceptable financial sponsors.

Evidence of funds

Applicants and sponsors can evidence source of funds by providing genuine documentation, such as:

• wage slips with corresponding bank statements showing transfers into their account;
• their last three years’ tax returns;
• their bank statements for the previous six months;
• an education loan sanction letter;
• a fixed-term deposit that is at least six months old; or
• a General Provident Fund (GPF) statement, or Employer Provident Fund (EPF) statement held with a RBI approved financial institution.

Problematic documentation

Some financial documentation is more commonly falsified, and it’s not possible for INZ Mumbai to satisfactorily verify it as genuine. This often includes documentation relating to gold loans, KCC loans, property sales, and agricultural income.

INZ Mumbai will accept these documents as genuine source of funds, but only if the income earned from these sources has been held by the applicant or their sponsor for at least six months at time of application lodgement, and the source of the held funds can be sufficiently verified.

INZ Mumbai often encounters issues when an applicant provides financial documentation from a number of different sponsors (e.g. friends and/or non-immediate family members) as evidence of funds. Often, these funds aren’t genuinely available to the applicant, or the sponsors have no real intention of financially supporting them. It’s very difficult for INZ to verify the applicant’s relationship with the sponsors.

Payment plan

Applicants who intend to study a two or three year course in New Zealand need to demonstrate they hold liquid funds to cover tuition fees and maintenance for their first year of study only. They should also provide INZ with a payment plan, with applicable evidence, to demonstrate their financial ability to pay for all subsequent years of study.

INZ assesses if the payment plan is reasonable and realistic, taking into account the financial history of the applicant or their sponsor. We recommend applicants provide documentation outlining income and savings over the three years prior to lodging the visa application to illustrate the feasibility of the payment plan.