Citizenship Programmes Shift Toward Digital Processing

Investor visa programmes are a huge income generator for most countries offering them. In many cases their economy heavily relies on CBI capital, particularly small nations such as the various Caribbean Islands offering programmes. As the Coronavirus crisis continues, several countries are taking positive steps in adapting their processing methods in order to move forward with applications, both old and new.

Within the last few weeks, a number of Citizenship Investment Unit’s announced their plans to digitalise the process. Both Saint Kitts and Nevis and Saint Lucia announced this week that their CIU staff have already started working remotely through their online processing systems. Les Khan, the St Kitts CIU’s chief executive stressed “It is important to highlight that the temporary measures will not compromise the stringent due diligence procedures that applicants to the St Kitts and Nevis Citizenship by Investment Programme must undergo,”

On March 18th, Grenada’s CIU also circulated an official announcement of their plan during the pandemic, stating that they will no longer accept hard copies of application documents and from March 31st, all authorized agents will need to file applications through their new online platform.

The Commonwealth of Dominica have been working remotely since March 25^th and are also accepting applications from processing agents, uploaded through their online portal. Dominica has found themselves in a similar situation before when their Citizenship Investment Unit was able to continue processing, despite the major disaster caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

In Europe, the Government of Cyprus has also called for the processing of their Citizenship by Investment applications to be accelerated. The programme usually takes a minimum of six months. Cyprus already offers the fastest direct citizenship programme in Europe attracting many high net worth investors each year.

Whilst these changes are very much needed during a period of quarantine and lockdown in order to continue, digitalisation may well revolutionise the entire processing system for CIU’s. This would be a welcome move in helping to speed up and streamline the processing of client applications going forward.

During a time of such uncertainty, the desire for a ‘Plan B’ Residency or Citizenship has become even more desirable. Whether you want to diversify your assets, gain the ability to travel more freely, or protect your family with the security of a second residency. La Vida offers 18 different investor visa programmes, many of which can be applied for remotely. For more details on how our experienced team can assist you, please contact us.