Value-added services are designed to enhance applicant convenience and are developed in “consultation with, and approved by, client governments,” added the company.
All nine EU governments that responded to Lighthouse Reports’ requests for comment said they issued sanctions against VFS where appropriate and took allegations of aggressive upselling seriously. Still, seven of the respondents noted they were generally pleased with the practice of outsourcing visa applications, and two said they were specifically happy with their cooperation with VFS.
When approached with the findings of this investigation, the European Commission said that, due to EU countries’ growing reliance on VFS and its competitors, it was launching a “comprehensive study” on the outsourcing of visa services, “with a view to drawing up options to prevent system abuses.”
Business model
Most Europeans have never heard of VFS. Accustomed to visa-free travel across much of the world, they are unlikely to ever wait in line at one of its application centers, pay its service charges or navigate its appointment portals.
But across much of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the company is widely known, and often resented. For students, workers, tourists and families trying to reach Europe, VFS is frequently their unavoidable first encounter with the European border: a private checkpoint where access to a consulate begins with a booking form and a list of fees. In India, for example, the company operates visa services for almost every EU member country.
VFS’s rise began in 2001, when Zubin Karkaria, then working for travel company Kuoni, noticed embassies were struggling to manage growing demand for visas. A Zoroastrian priest and entrepreneur, Karkaria persuaded the U.S. embassy in Mumbai to let him run a pilot scheme, testing an outsourcing model that would later become the template for a global industry.