UK won't accept statements from 1,800 Indian banks

The UK Border Agency (UKBA), which controls immigrations into the country under the Home Office, on Tuesday issued a long list of over 1800 banks in India from which it will not accept financial statements of students applying for study visa.

The list of banks that appear are mostly scheduled and unscheduled urban co-operative banks and district co-operative banks spread across the country.

The UKBA has also provided a much shorter list of banks, mostly commercial banks, from which financial statements will be accepted for students applying for visa.

In a statement accompanying this two lists, the UKBA said, "We will include an institution on the list if we consider, on the basis of experience, that it does not verify financial statements to our satisfaction in more than 50 per cent of a sample of cases."

"Further or alternatively, we may include institutions on the list if they do not participate in specified schemes or arrangements in the country of origin, where we trust the verification checks provided by banks that do participate in those schemes," UKBA said.

The criteria for banks that can provide the financial statements were 1) international banks; or 2) national banks with a UK private banking presence; or 3)regulated national/state banks that provide a core banking service.

"When a bank frequently provides unsatisfactory responses to verification requests, it is proportionate to include it on a list from which we will not accept documents, rather than verifying applications individually," UKBA said.

A similar list of banks from which financial statements will not be accepted have been provided for Pakistan and Philippines too, although a much shorter list than that of India.

The list of banks will be regularly reviewed to either keep them in the black list or add them to those from which statements will be accepted.