Visa Processing Part II

Students planning to get a visa from Chennai consulate need to schedule an appointment for visa interview by visiting a VFS office located close to you in the cities of Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi. Click here for the location and address of the VFS centers.

Before scheduling a visa interview, make sure you have all the necessary documents and finances in place. List of documents that has to be submitted to VFS can be found here.

Before you start preparing the documents, you need to make sure that you have adequate finance to support your education in Germany for two years. Financial adequacy can be achieved by several means but the most common being either education loan or support from your family.

Visit this link to check interest rates and other terms and conditions of education loan offered by all the major banks of India. If you are applying for an education loan, make sure you apply atleast 3 months prior to the month in which your course starts as getting a loan sanctioned and receiving all the necessary documents from the bank can take anywhere between 20-40 days.

Important note on Finance: When applying for a visa, you need to show sufficient funds to convince the authorities that you will be able to sustain yourself for two years in Germany without having to rely on part-time jobs or other sources for income. Any of the following source of money is accepted by the consulate. Minimum finance that one needs to show during visa application should cover: Tuition Fee + Living expenses for one year. But its recommended to show Tuition Fee + Living expenses for two years as it would reduce the chances of visa rejection to zero.

1. Education loan.

2. Education Loan + Savings in your personal bank account.

3. Education Loan + Savings in your personal bank account + Savings in your parents/relatives account.

4. Savings in your parents/relatives account.

5. Any combination of the above mentioned means of finance.

Following investments are not accepted by the consulate as proof of finance:

1. Fixed Deposits (Please confirm with VFS as there is a lot of ambiguity regarding its validity)

2. Mutual Funds, ULIP, Life Insurance, NSC, KVP and Share certificates.

Note: Rules can change from time to time. Please confirm with either VFS or the consulate regarding the validity of the above mentioned forms of investments.

Once you have the loan sanctioned, you will receive an official loan sanction letter from the bank. Apart from this letter, request the concerned bank manager to provide you another letter in the bank's letter head which mentions the loan amount sanctioned to you as well as its equivalent value in Euro. You need letter for visa processing. Most banks will have a format of their own for issuing such letters. In case they don't have one, you can use the one below as a reference.

**********************************************************************************

BANK LETTER HEAD

Bank's complete address Date:_______

Phone Place:_______

Fax

Email

To whomsoever it may concern

This is to certify that Mr. ABC has been sanctioned an education loan of Rs. 10,00,000 (Rupees Ten Lakhs only) approximately equivalent to Euro 15,400 (Euro Fifteen thousand four hundred only) to pursue his postgraduate studies in Mechanical Engineering at University of XYZ, Germany.

For "Bank Name",

Branch Manager

(Seal and Signature)

**********************************************************************************

**This format is for reference only.

After you receive this letter from the bank, get it translated to German from anybody with decent translation skills.

Along with your loan, if you are planning to show your savings in the form of cash in savings account, you need to produce 12 months account statement when applying for visa. Along with the account statement, get a letter from the branch manager which mentions the balance of you account in rupees and its equivalent value in Euro. As mentioned earlier, banks will have a ready made template for issuing such letters, in case if they don't have one, you can refer the format given below.

**********************************************************************************

BANK LETTER HEAD

Bank's complete address Date:_______

Phone Place:_______

Fax

Email

To whomsoever it may concern

This is to certify that Mr. ABC s/o Mr. XYZ, residing at "full residential address" is maintaining a savings account No. 1212131 with us. Balance in the above account as on date is Rs. 1,00,000 (Equivalent to Euro 1540 @ Notional rate of Rs. 65 per Euro)

For "Bank Name",

Branch Manager

(Seal and Signature)

**********************************************************************************

**This format is for reference only.

This letter also needs to be translated to German.

Important note on translation: All the translations should be on an A4 paper. Translations need not be on any letter head, they need not be on a stamp paper, they need not carry the signature of the bank manager or any other authority and no need to get it authorized by a Notary. Get the translations done on a plain A4 paper that's it!! If required, put your signature and nothing else.

DAAD office or Max Mueller Bhavan in your city can help you with the translations. Also, Indo German Chamber of Commerce (IGCC) will take up the translation work. For IGCC locations and contact details, click here. Both DAAD and IGCC are expensive when compared to freelance translators and the cost of translation in DAAD/IGCC can run up to several thousand rupees depending on the number of pages. But on the brighter side, DAAD/IGCC translations are very accurate and professional. Staff in the German consulate will not doubt the authenticity of translation if it carries the seal of DAAD or IGCC.

If you want to keep the keep the cost of translation low, look for freelancers who will be ready to do the work at a fraction of what it costs in DAAD/IGCC. Also, if your city has a university with a department for German language studies, professors from that department can help you with the translation work.

To be continued in my next post.....

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