FSC Issues Licensing Criteria For Money Lending Licence

In 2020, money lending activity, which was previously regulated by the Bank of Mauritius, came under the purview of the Financial Services Commission (FSC). A new section 14A was included in the Financial Services Act 2007 (FSA) which, inter alia, provides that a person, not being a bank, who lends money as a business must hold a money lending licence.

There are some persons who are exempt from the requirement to apply for a money lending licence and these include:

• any person bona fide carrying on the business of banking or insurance or bona fide carrying on any business not having as its primary object the lending of money, in the course of which and for the purposes of which it lends money;