Financial Institutions

FCB Smart Visa

Project Team:

Move to single authorised deposit taking institution.

The background

In 2008, merger negotiations between two Immigration Compliance Associated with Merger got underway in a move towards a single ADI. Each bank had a significant sponsored expatriate population and attendant obligations under Australia’s immigration law framework.

The brief

The clients’ risk and compliance considerations needed to be managed through a dense weave of corporate, employment, financial and migration legislation. The brief, given to Alex Kaufman, was to meticulously time the transfers and have the clients and their sponsored transferees emerge from the process without enlivening employer sanctions, or incurring any breaches on the part of the visa holders or sponsors.

The solution

The team conducted a thorough audit on both institutions’ expatriate workforce. This required an assessment of raw expat numbers, nationalities, remuneration structure, position nomenclature for each of the home and target institutions, promotions since commencement, changes in family composition, renewals or variations to contractual terms and visa expiry. We then prepared a suite of applications and submissions based on some of the deeming provisions under the Commonwealth Banking Act that would arise upon certification of the merger by the Federal Treasurer. We optimised the draft transfer contracts to take into account immigration-related obligations for both outbound and inbound sponsors, and ensured the immigration department allocated dedicated resources and a senior team of public servants to process the applications given the importance of continuity of service to all stakeholders.

The outcome

In a complex, multi-transactional procedure 2 years in the making, we executed our piece of the operation with zero latency or error. The inbound client was thrilled to able to carry on its day to day business with the benefit of our compliance audit, and built in failsafes to monitor and ensure future compliance.