HSMP - bank account statements question

Does anyone know if there's an actual level of saving required or is it an unknown, case-by-case assessment?

Like most people, I'll be leaving with plenty once I sell everything, including car, and get final pay/holiday pay, but that's long after the visa application will have gone through.

So how much does one need?

Whats HSMP i have never herd of that.

If you talking about opening a bank account then when i applied to open my HSBC account i had to have atleast 750 pounds to open it with~! More if you wanted to and if you didnt want to take so much cash or travellers checks over with you~

HSMP is the highly-skilled migrant visa

I was going to look at HSBC for opening an account before I get there but apparently ASB can do it too. That's a different topic though.

To clarify my question - when applying for the visa, they ask for bank account statements for a certain period (3 months?) and you need to show you've got enough cash to survive in the UK for a month + airfare. Just curious as to what that means...

okkkkay well i had to provide the same statements and she said to me when i rang that as long as i had a few thousand in my bank that was fine.

I also had to provide the following

-Letter from my brother stating that i was stayuing with him so wasnt paying rent (otherwise id assume you would need to provide evidence of more money to cover rent)


-You need to have proof of your money rather than having assets that EVENTUALLY will be sold (this was something that pissed me off cause she expected me to show her my savings but i wasnt going to sell my car or my decks like 4- 5 weeks before i leave so taht i could show her the money in my account. I eventually argued my case enough that i had to show her copys of the Trade me ads when i was selling my car and decks (this was a big portion of my money that i was taking)

You need to prove a decent amount of money (more so if you dont have a job) and not AS much if you have a letter stating that you have a have a job or a letter from an agency saying that you are engaged in looking for one!

MAKE SURE YOU SORT YOUR ACCOUNT ASAP, yes ASB can do it but it takes 5-8 weeks to open an account and you need that 750 pounds + 60 dollars for ASB to write all the letters.

You need to go into the bank and get them to print out the international HSBC application form and you need to fill out some pages and they have to do the rest. You need to take in your passport or a certified copy and have the opening money in your account which they take out at that time.

You will need an addres in the UK (temporary is ok) so that they can send you the 3 different letters about your account info. They do it in 3 letters incase one gets lost.

MAKE SURE YOU FILL OUT THE FORM IN BLACK INK ONLY too or they will make you re do them!

oh and the international mail from ASB goes on a wed night so make sure you do it before then or you wait another whole week! and thats one more week that it will take to get!

I wondered the same thing when I applied and phoned the home office. Their response was vague...I tried to get an indicative figure but they wouldn't give me one. So to answer your question, it's case by case/home office's discretion etc. etc. like numerous other areas.

A word of advise, the home office have a lot of clueless monkeys working there so make sure your application is presented so that it's easy to assess. You might want to give a breakdown of how your income is calcuated for example. Let me know if you have any other questions - I've applied twice for HSMP so pretty familiar with their criteria.

$5000 is a figure I've heard thrown around but yeah didn't actually come across it during the process of applying for my Ancestry visa so it could be vastly different.

This sounds all a bit odd to me. When i went for HSMP they were far more interested in how much I had earned in the last 12 months, not whether I'd managed to save any of it. I used my bank statements as a second proof of income, after wage slips. After all that's what they judge the points on.

Obviously, coming to the UK you'll need a bank account, but given the processing time and the fact there's no point in having an account if you can't get the visa, I can't see how this could be part of the process.

When i did the working holiday visa it was different - I had to prove I had savings to partially support me the first few months. is that what they're requiring you to do, in addition to the HSMP application? If so, about 2 years ago it was £2,000 or there abouts.

Are you using an agency or doing it yourself?

I guess checking you've got enough cash to support yourself when you apply for the visa means they avoid turning people away at the border?

The UK account is a separate issue that I wasn't actually asking about

I'm just doing the application myself, though I haven't started it yet. Still 13 weeks from leaving so I won't apply for another week yet. I'm going to a seminar on Wednesday with these people www.globalcareerlink.com though.

Yeah, unless you have your own company or something, it's pretty straight forward to do it yourself. Just be meticulous.