Mauritius has taken another important step in strengthening the transparency and integrity of its financial system with the implementation of the Central Accounts Registry (CAR) by the Bank of Mauritius.
Established pursuant to Section 52A of the Bank of Mauritius Act 2004, the CAR provides a centralised framework for collecting prescribed information on accounts maintained with relevant financial institutions in Mauritius. Rather than requiring authorities to approach each institution separately, the Registry consolidates account identification data in a single system maintained by the central bank.
The statutory definition of an account for the purposes of the CAR extends beyond conventional bank accounts. It includes accounts maintained in Mauritius by financial institutions for their customers, accounts designated in accordance with international standardisation rules (IBAN), and safe deposit boxes leased by banks. The Bank of Mauritius may also specify additional categories of accounts to be captured.
Participation is not optional for the institutions concerned. Licensed banks and other relevant financial institutions carry a statutory obligation to become participants of the Registry and to report the prescribed information – which is why many of them have issued customer communiqués on the subject in recent months.
The scope of the framework has also been widened. Amendments introduced through the Finance Act 2025 allow KYC institutions to become participating institutions of the Registry on terms determined by the Bank, and refined the statutory definitions of “account” and “customer” for the purposes of the CAR.
Two clarifications matter here, particularly for businesses assessing what the Registry means in practice.
First, the CAR is not a public register. It is not searchable by counterparties, competitors or the general public, and it does not function as a commercial database.
Second, it does not contain customers’ account balances or the amounts held in their accounts. The Registry answers the question of where accounts are held and by whom – not what sits in them, or what moves through them.
Access is governed by law. Account information may be made available by the Bank of Mauritius to relevant supervisory or law-enforcement authorities in circumstances prescribed by the legislation, including for the prevention, detection and investigation of money laundering, terrorist financing, proliferation financing and other financial crimes. Designated authorities – among them the Financial Intelligence Unit, the Financial Services Commission, the tax and enforcement authorities – operate within defined legal channels, with certain requests requiring judicial authorisation.
For Mauritius, the significance of the CAR goes beyond regulatory compliance.
Greater visibility of account ownership allows competent authorities to trace financial relationships more efficiently. Investigations that previously required sequential requests to individual institutions can begin from a single point of reference. In practical terms, this raises the operational cost of misusing the jurisdiction while reducing the friction – and the reputational exposure – for the overwhelming majority of businesses operating legitimately.
This sits within a longer trajectory. Since Mauritius exited the FATF’s increased-monitoring process in October 2021, strengthening the effectiveness and credibility of the country’s AML/CFT framework has remained a consistent national priority. The CAR belongs to the same category of infrastructure as the jurisdiction’s wider work on KYC systems, payment modernisation and supervisory capability: unglamorous, largely invisible to end users, and decisive for how the financial centre is perceived by correspondent banks and international counterparties.
That perception has commercial weight. For a jurisdiction whose value proposition rests on being a well-regulated gateway between Africa and global markets, the quality of its compliance infrastructure is not a background detail – it is part of the offering.
For institutions and businesses operating through Mauritius, the development reinforces a fundamental compliance principle: customer and account information must remain accurate, consistent and up to date across the financial ecosystem.
Where account records are held across several institutions, discrepancies that once remained isolated within individual banks now sit within a single consolidated view. Reviewing the consistency of entity details, account structures and customer information across banking relationships is a practical step worth taking – not because the Registry creates new obligations for account holders, but because it makes existing data quality more visible.
“At MAGMA Finance, we see regulatory infrastructure such as the CAR as an important part of building a financial centre that combines innovation and cross-border connectivity with strong governance and transparency. Trust in modern financial services is increasingly built not only through faster payments and better technology, but through the quality of the infrastructure that sits behind them.”
– Nitish Caullychurn, Director, MAGMA Finance
As a regulated payment institution headquartered in Mauritius, MAGMA Finance continues to follow the development of the jurisdiction’s regulatory and payment infrastructure, and its implications for businesses moving money across borders.
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