Can't open business account with student visa

[TFTC]

I hope there are people with legal minds here who can help me out. I am an international student studying here in SA. I registered some patents in 2013 and in 2014 I registered a Pvt Ltd company (as sole owner) to commercialize the patents. Now the challenge I'm having is banks are telling me I can't open an account for my company using my student visa. The three banks I've approached say they need a work visa. I went through the Immigration Act, Companies Act and the Banks Act and nowhere in the legislations do they specifically restrict holders of student visas to open corporate accounts. What I cant comprehend is CIPC allowed me to register a company but a student visa but banks can't accept it to open accounts. Any ideas on how I can find a solution to this problem?

 

[Venomous]

the way I understand it....
(unless it changed recently)
by law on a study visa, you are not permitted to work, your intent is to study. Maybe the banks are turning you down as having a business account here implies intent to work, meaning that it would be in breach of your visa?

 

[Segg]

the way I understand it....
(unless it changed recently)
by law on a study visa, you are not permitted to work, your intent is to study. Maybe the banks are turning you down as having a business account here implies intent to work, meaning that it would be in breach of your visa?

This

Study visa is to study, you're not supposed to directly engage in business activities here when you are on a student visa. Why can't you use your country's banks? I'm sure if you talk to the correct person in the bank (like the manager) you may be more successful than talking to counter personnel

 

[TFTC]

the way I understand it....
(unless it changed recently)
by law on a study visa, you are not permitted to work, your intent is to study. Maybe the banks are turning you down as having a business account here implies intent to work, meaning that it would be in breach of your visa?

Under the SA Immigration Act holders of a student Visa are allowed to work for not more than 20hrs a week so legally I'm allowed to work. Considering these are patents registered under SA law it would be technically and logistically impossible to develop them outside SA where they don't have any IP protection.

 

[noob_saibot]

Under the SA Immigration Act holders of a student Visa are allowed to work for not more than 20hrs a week so legally I'm allowed to work. Considering these are patents registered under SA law it would be technically and logistically impossible to develop them outside SA where they don't have any IP protection.

Possibly incorrect.

SA IP law concerning patents conforms with those of the EU and some other national accord.

From my knowledge of it, getting a registered patent from SA should give you a license throughout many countries/blocs except the USA, which has it's own patent structure.

For both your patent and labour issues, you should be consulting a lawyer, or at minimum, researching the laws yourself to grasp what legal protections your IP has and what recourse you can take for the labour/bank-account issue (there may be a special visa for people who invent things, although I highly doubt it).