GIC certificate – Canadian student visa

The GIC certificate or Guaranteed Investment Certificate is a mandatory requirement for getting a student visa for Canada that needs to be fulfilled before one can apply for the visa and there is no exception to this. This money is used to fund the students living expenses and the entire amount of CAD 10k gets paid to him once he is in Canada i.e. CAD 2k when he opens the bank account there and the balance CAD 8k is paid on a monthly installment with an interest factored in at about 3% or so.

You can read about it in detail at http://www.scotiabank.com/ca/en/0,,5698,00.html

The facility to transfer the funds to Nova Scotia Bank, Canada was with my banker i.e. HDFC Bank though I can only assume that most other banks too should also be able to do it since it’s only an international wire transfer. What is important to note is that the funds have to be transferred from the bank account of the student only though a joint account with the parent will be acceptable. The funds cannot be transferred from the bank account of any other person (related to the student or not) and if so done the application will get rejected.

Rishabh’s (my son) case it was a bit complicated since he had just turned 18 and all major documents needed to be updated with a change of his status from minor to major since a minor does not have a legal status to sign any contracts. His bank account was also as a minor under guardian (joint with me) and the change in status of PAN card is a prerequisite to the change in the status of the bank account.

GIC Certificate

The change in the PAN card from minor to major is simple with all the details being fed online at the GOI website and within 3 weeks or so I had the updated PAN card with me. With the PAN card done and the bank account status changed from minor to major (but still joint with me). It may be noted here that all these activities are time consuming hence it is best advised that the activities should be started at the earliest possible.

Rishabh put in an application to HDFC for the wire transfer for the GIC. Any international wire transfer should take place between 4-5 days but even after 12 days we were waiting for the GIC certificate which is intimated by mail (on the Nova Scotia secure webmail account). I also called the Nova Scotia bank in New Delhi and they were of no help as they cater to institutionalized banking and not retail and for the GIC they informed us to call the bank in Canada only. Checking online on various forums did not make things any simpler as each had their own experiences of the time lines in which they had received their GOC certificates and they ranged mostly from 2 weeks to 4 weeks post the wire money transfer.

Rishabh then called the Nova Scotia bank in Canada on two occasions to find out the status of his application and both the times he was informed that the wire transfer had not reached them. Finally after an agonizing wait we got the GIC certificate (soft copy) 15 days post applying for the same.

Once the certificate was received the application was made to the consulate in New Delhi for the student visa.

Now starts the wait for the visa to come 🙁



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