Since exiting the FATF and EU grey and black lists, Mauritius has turned its financial centre into a growth engine: financial services represent about 14% of GDP and Global Business over 8%, even as regulatory and competitive pressures mount.

A growth engine now at the core of the economy

Data published by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and relayed by the U.S. Department of State show that in 2023, financial and insurance activities accounted for nearly   14 %   of Mauritian GDP. In its annual report, the FSC notes that the financial services sector has become one of the main pillars of the economy, with a contribution to GDP of   13.5 %   and an estimated growth rate of  3.9 %  for 2023. This rise confirms that the Mauritian international financial centre is no longer just a diversification tool but a fully‑fledged driver of growth.

For Mauritian policymakers, the question is no longer whether a financial hub exists, but how to use it as a lever for moving up the value chain, deepening African integration and building resilience to external shocks.

“We want to consolidate Mauritius’ position as an international financial centre of reference, while meeting the growing expectations on transparency and the fight against financial crime.” — Excerpt from the official positioning of the Mauritius International Financial Centre, mauritiusifc.mu

From offshore centre to regulated African platform

The Mauritius International Financial Centre notes that over the past four years, cross‑border financial services have recorded a growth rate above  4.5 %  per annum and employ more than 9,900 professionals. The FSC estimates that financial services now stand alongside tourism and ICT as a key pillar, marking a break with the sugar and textile‑driven model of previous decades. At the core of this model lies Global Business, which makes Mauritius a structuring platform for investment into Africa and Asia.

According to Mauritian authorities, the Global Business segment alone contributes about  8.4 %  of the economy (forecast for 2022), aggregating companies with global business licences and the services they purchase locally. Weekly L’Express reports that the financial services sector employed 10,473 people in 2023, almost half of them in Global Business, which gives the hub a significant footprint in skilled domestic employment.  Taken together, these elements show how the financial centre has become a genuine services industrial base, rather than just a tax “mailbox”.

A fast‑growing non‑bank segment

The FSC observes that total assets of the non‑bank financial services sector (excluding Global Business companies and insurers) grew by   12 %   to reach MUR 78.4 billion in 2023, signalling a deepening of asset management, leasing, specialised finance and other regulated activities. Over the 2023‑2024 period, the regulator issued 1,237 new Global Business licences, compared with 1,087 the previous year, which points to sustained momentum in a more demanding international environment.  For the banks and asset managers based in Mauritius, these figures draw a solid pipeline of flows and recurring fee income.

From a macroeconomic standpoint, the Bank of Mauritius highlights that financial services’ contribution to growth is among the most robust of the non‑tourism sectors, which helps smooth the economic cycle when tourism arrivals or manufacturing value chains come under stress.

Reputation, compliance and competitive pressure

After being placed on the FATF grey list in 2020, Mauritius implemented an accelerated action plan that enabled it to exit the list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring and, by extension, the European Union blacklist, strengthening its position as a “compliant” jurisdiction. The FATF confirmed Mauritius’ removal from the grey list in 2021 after an on‑site visit, acknowledging the upgrade of its anti‑money‑laundering and counter‑terrorist‑financing framework.  This normalisation lifted a systemic risk for the financial centre, particularly regarding correspondent banking access and credibility with institutional investors.

In a 2025 appraisal report, the African Development Bank stresses that the move upmarket of the financial centre requires continuous strengthening of supervisory and investigative capacity, which underpins the TacFiC technical assistance project to combat financial crimes. Mauritius also created the Financial Crimes Commission in 2024, merging several agencies in order to improve the consistency of the national response to corruption and money laundering.  These developments show that the hub’s competitiveness now rests as much on compliance as on tax.

At the same time, Mauritius faces more aggressive competition: other African hubs such as Kigali International Financial Centre or Casablanca Finance City, as well as Indian Ocean jurisdictions like Seychelles, are vying for slices of Global Business flows and of the emerging impact‑investment vehicles.

From tax rent to regional value creation

The official positioning of the Mauritius IFC now places less emphasis on pure tax advantages and more on the combination of double‑taxation treaties, investment‑protection agreements, a hybrid civil/common law framework and a multilingual workforce. In a 2025 technical report, the IMF notes that Global Business companies have become “integral” to the Mauritian economy, to the point that their statistical treatment in the national accounts and balance of payments must be refined.  Together, these elements signal a gradual shift in the model: from a pure tax‑conduit logic to a higher‑value service platform for African investment.

For African investors, the Mauritian financial centre offers three strategic advantages: growing depth of services (private banking, funds, private debt, regulated fintech), macro and regulatory stability superior to the regional average, and the ability to structure multi‑jurisdiction operations with still‑competitive transaction costs.

The blind spots to watch

Behind these strengths, several vulnerabilities remain:

• high dependence on cross‑border Global Business flows, which exposes the country to source‑country rule changes and tax‑treaty renegotiations;
• mounting pressure from international standard‑setters (OECD, FATF), which narrows the room for manoeuvre on preferential tax regimes;
• fiercer competition from other African hubs and Asian jurisdictions willing to adjust their regulatory offers quickly.

Back in 2023, the Bank of Mauritius already underlined that efforts to consolidate Mauritius’ status as an IFC of repute had to go hand in hand with diversifying domestic growth drivers in order to mitigate concentration risks.

What’s next: the next phase of moving up the curve

With financial services contributing about   13.5 %   of GDP and a non‑bank segment whose assets are growing at double‑digit rates, the current trajectory makes the financial centre the main growth engine outside tourism. In this context, the next steps – rolling out sustainable‑finance tools, integrating regulated fintechs and attracting African asset managers – will determine whether Mauritius can stay ahead in the African race for financial hubs.  This reading would be invalidated by a renewed and lasting concern over compliance (a return to grey lists) or by a rapid erosion of the Global Business licensing pipeline; it would be strengthened if, over the next two to three years, authorities manage to keep sector growth around recent levels while further consolidating perceptions of transparency and local substance.