Living and Working in Australia Forum With Immigration and Travel Information - Offshore Partner Visa 309/100 Waiting Room

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- - Offshore Partner Visa 309/100 Waiting Room (https://www.australiaforum.com/visas-immigration/80537-offshore-partner-visa-309-100-waiting-room.html)

St George bank is good too, my husband and i have a joint account and he's on a ETA visa right now here in Australia.

BankSA

Though we didn't share immigration status as that was not a question asked. My SO was already an account holder.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CollegeGirl (Post 547633)

Ignore that timeframe on the Immi website. It has not been updated for at least two years and is very misleading. There's no low-risk embassy anymore with an average of 5 months processing... I really wish they'd just take that wrong information down.

Hi College Girl. I know I'm late to this forum, but had a couple questions. I'm also American and my Aussie girlfriend and I applied offshore August 13 for the 309 . It has been 3 months and we haven't heard anything. While we expected this, the conflicting time frames on the 2 government sites is frustrating. Is it the 5 months as in immi, or the 12-15 on the U.S. Site? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Chuck

Quote:

Originally Posted by ctegleston (Post 668521)

CG isn't around much these days so I will answer for her. The immigration website has still got old processing times. The best bet is to go by the local embassy's processing tines.

I assume you are applying based on de facto so I just want to make sure that you have been living together for at least 12 months or have registered the relationship.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DChubbyAUwife (Post 666945)

Hi all,

I wanted to ask a question about joint bank accounts after some discussion in this thread about a Visa denial due to insufficient evidence in regards to joint finances.

(I couldn't find a thread just about opening a bank account, but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough so sorry if this is a repeated topic of conversation).

My husband and I had decided not to open a joint account until we live together but it would actually be good for us to start saving for the future now while he has his job in the USA (as employment may take a while once he is here).

Hubby will be here for a quick Xmas visit so we should probably just go ahead and get a joint account then. I spoke with my bank on Friday (Teachers Mutual Bank) and they told me they have been told just recently they can't open accounts unless the person has a residency visa. When I questioned this, the lady told me to Google it (what the!!!.. ). I have since 'Googled it', and can only find info suggesting opening an account on a tourist visa with just a passport is fairly easy.

What are people's experiences with opening bank accounts? (either joint or just for the visa applicant), has anyone been knocked back due to being here on a tourist visa or told they need to wait until they have their residency visa in hand?

Any particular bank been more helpful than others?

Any info would be helpful!

CHEERS!!

Kirsty

Hi Kirsty,

We opened a joint account when my partner was here last on an ETA with ANZ. My local branch was really helpful and informed us that as long as it was within a certain time frame of him arriving into the country he could open the account without residency proof (using just his passport). I think the timeframe was somewhere between 6 and 10 weeks. Hence the importance of getting that done early.

The other piece of advice she gave when setting it up that benefitted us was making it an online saver account as we wouldn't be depositing wages into it. This saved us in monthly account keeping fees and still allows us to save for his arrival when there will be a time of waiting with no income on his side. I was informed we would be able to change it over to a card account when he is working and wants his wage deposited. Or keep it as a joint savings account and open another everyday, or add him to my everyday to make that a joint account. I'm sure you could do the same with NAB.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DChubbyAUwife (Post 666945)

When my boyfriend first came to Australia with me on a Working Holiday Visa he was able to open a bank account with NAB in about 5 minutes. All he needed was his passport. He wasn't on the lease for my apartment and he'd just arrived so he didn't have proof of address, but it wasn't a problem.

Kirsty/DChubbyAUwife (I love that handle :) ),

I can corroborate what MamaBear wrote. I opened a joint savings account with my partner at ANZ while in Oz on an ETA. It's a Progress Saver account which we linked to his checking and other accounts. I was issued an ATM card immediately. ANZ has been great particularly for the visa process as they can send you digital copies of old documents within 2 days. We have our opening statement from 4 years ago just before we got married, as well as intermediate and recent statements to use in our application. ANZ also sent us new cards overseas when the originals expired.

We were also able to do the same here in the US while he was here on an ESTA for 2 weeks. We opened an account at my childhood community bank, which doesn't charge foreign transaction fees. All he needed was his passport and a TIN (tax identification number), which we'd acquired for tax filing purposes.

As an aside, if you don't plan to file joint US taxes, then it may not benefit you in the long run to handle all your finances through joint bank accounts. There is a lot of information on expat sites about how to handle joint bank accounts for tax purposes, so I'd encourage you to look into that as well.

Hi Hodgi and Charlie Brown (and anyone else applying from NZ) -we've just reached 5 months and still no word from IMMI. You guys are both a couple of months behind us, in terms of timeline, so just letting you know!

Hey JMac. Thanks for letting us know! Hopefully you hear something, anything, soon! Wouldn't a visa be a brilliant Christmas present!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by hodgi_76 (Post 678569)

Hey JMac. Thanks for letting us know! Hopefully you hear something, anything, soon! Wouldn't a visa be a brilliant Christmas present!!

It sure would be! We still have to do police and medical checks though, so even if we got an email from IMMI tomorrow, we probably wouldn't get the visa by Christmas. I'm just hoping it comes through before our wedding next year, that would be brilliant!!