FS-1.17 Peer to Peer Lending.

Financial Services Act section 2: “financial services” means any financial services or financial business activities governed by the relevant Acts, and includes the financial business activities specified in Part I of the Second Schedule.

Section 2: “Peer-to-Peer Lending” means a financial business activity which enables a person to lend funds through an online portal or electronic platform which matches lenders and borrowers. Second Schedule Part I lists the same name.

The licence is for the platform operator. Fifth Schedule item 13 then exempts from section 14A “any person lending money through a peer-to-peer lending platform operated by a person licensed by the Commission to operate that platform.” Lenders on a licensed platform are not, by that lending alone, moneylenders under section 14A.

Published FS-1.17 criteria: the applicant is restricted from undertaking, in its own name, raising any deposit in any form, lending, or providing or arranging any credit enhancement or guarantee. That is an operator restriction, not a description of what lenders on the platform may do.

Section 14(1): “No person shall carry out, or hold himself out as carrying out, in Mauritius any financial services without a licence issued by the Commission.” Section 14(2): contravention is an offence, a fine not exceeding one million rupees and imprisonment for a term not exceeding 8 years.

Section 16(1): an application must be in such form and manner as FSC Rules specify and accompanied by “(a) a business plan or feasibility study outlining the proposed business activity of the applicant; (b) particulars and information relating to customer due diligence verification of promoters, beneficial owners, controllers and proposed directors …; (c) such fees as may be specified in FSC Rules; and (d) such other information as may be specified in FSC Rules or otherwise required by the Commission”.

Section 18(1): the Commission may issue a licence “authorising the applicant to carry out the business activity specified in the licence on such terms and conditions as may be specified in FSC Rules or as it deems appropriate in the circumstances.” Section 18(2) forbids a grant unless, among other things, the application complies with the law, the applicant has “adequate resources, infrastructure, staff with the appropriate competence, experience and proficiency”, adequate arrangements to supervise everything done under the licence, fit-and-proper controllers and beneficial owners, and “no prejudice would be caused or would ensue to the financial services industry”. Section 18(3): the holder “shall, at all times, continue to satisfy the requirements specified in subsection (2)”.

Section 25: the Commission may, by written notice, vary a licence. It must not restrict the authorised activity or include further conditions unless it has notified the licensee of the proposal and the reasons and given a reasonable opportunity to make representations.

Part V ongoing obligations of licensees still attach: record keeping (section 29) and audited financial statements (section 30), unless a specific exemption is granted. A circular or a criteria PDF does not rewrite those sections.

Financial Services (Peer to Peer Lending) Rules 2020 (GN 184, as amended by GN 37 of 2021) apply to a P2P Operator holding the licence. Applications follow Part IV of the Act.

Published criteria: minimum unimpaired stated capital of MUR 2 million or its equivalent, or such higher amount as the Commission may determine. Directors’ undertakings on lender and borrower limits (natural-person lender aggregate MUR 1.5 million in any 12-month period; legal-person lender MUR 3 million; natural-person borrower MUR 1 million until at least one third is reimbursed; legal-person borrower MUR 5 million on the same reimbursement trigger) belong in the file. The 2021 amendment to rule 6 disapplies those lending limits for expert investors.

2021 amendment, replacement rule 13: funds of lenders and borrowers must be maintained separately from the operator’s own funds, through appropriately identified bank accounts in Mauritius.