Maintainence Exchange Rate in Australia

[jacko_]

Just FYI for the forum.

I have spoken to 3 seperate people at the BHC in Canberra and each time been told that maintainence will be calculated based on the DAILY exchange rate. That is, for each of the 90 (or so) days over the 3 months, there will be 90 exchange rates. One for each day. They will NOT use the exchange rate on the last day of your bank statement, application date or any other day.

This is different from what I've been reading for the Indian and other BHC's.

Hope this helps someone

[niw2]

Well, there has always been 90 different exchange rates for 90 days. The real question is: Which day's exchange rate do they use if its not the exchange rate on the last day of your bank statement (for maintenance funds) or the exchange rate on the day of your last salary payment (for previous earnings)?

[jacko_]

Sorry, I dont think I clarified this enough.

For the 3 months bank statements you have provided as evidence of maintainence:

They take your cash balance each day, and check it against the Oanda exchange rate ON THAT DAY! That is, there will be 90'ish DIFFERENT exchange rates used over the 3 month period.

Edit: Also bear in mind that this rule is COMPLETELY different to the previous earnings section, which uses the exchange rate on the LAST DAY of your bank statement.

[jacko_]

Just to further clarify:

Anyway, just to clarify their exact position for you. Over the 3 calender months they will take your Australian bank balance each day against the closing exchange rate for that day (as found on Oanda). That is, there will be 90 (or so) different exchange rates used over the maintainence period. The 3rd lady I spoke to at the BHC in Canberra actually read me out the internal memo of theirs which basically said that they "clarified" the wording (read: changed) to appear to be more fair to those who have been affected by the economic crisis. It turns out the maintainence rule is also different from their ruling for demonstrating past earnings which is the section before maintenance on the Tier 1 form (and this uses the exchange rate of the last day on your bank statement like you said, if you can figure that out).

[niw2]

Wow, I wonder who the poor bastard is who has to go through and check whether there were sufficient funds on each and every day! The new guy in the office, I guess.

This is actually beneficial for applicants, because if the AUD is expected to drop in value against the GBP over the 3 month period, applicants can steadily increase the amount they have in their account and still comply.

[jacko_]

Wow, I wonder who the poor bastard is who has to go through and check whether there were sufficient funds on each and every day! The new guy in the office, I guess.

This is actually beneficial for applicants, because if the AUD is expected to drop in value against the GBP over the 3 month period, applicants can steadily increase the amount they have in their account and still comply.

Yes for some but not beneficial for the applicants who were relying on the old wording...

[niw2]

It isnt clear to me how it could be detrimental for anybody. If anything, the applicants who thought they had to maintain an amount of maintenance funds calculated at the current exchange rate now learn that they kept slightly more maintenance funds than they needed to.