A quiet migration is underway in prop trading. The same firms that rushed to register in the Comoros barely a year ago are now surfacing on the books of a different offshore regulator, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) of Mauritius.
FundingPips, FundedNext's FNmarkets, Hola Prime and Finotive Markets have all secured Mauritius licences in recent months, and several now offer their brokerage services from there rather than from the Indian Ocean archipelago where they first planted a flag.
The Comoros chapter began with a squeeze. When MetaQuotes tightened its rules on white-label arrangements with proprietary trading firms in early 2024, firms cut off from the MetaTrader platforms their evaluation models relied on went looking for a workaround. A growing number found one in the Comoros, where the likes of FundingPips, City Traders Imperium, Goat Funded Trader and Wall Street Funded set up entities.
For most, the appeal appeared narrow. A Comoros registration looked less like a bid to build a brokerage and more like a route to licensing MetaTrader platforms directly. Only a handful went further, FundedNext among them, using its Comoros footing to launch FNmarkets, a standalone CFD brokerage.
Read more: Is the End of the Comoros “License” Mirage Coming?
A Licence of Convenience
The Comoros option was fast, inexpensive and light on requirements, qualities that suited firms in need of a quick fix. But it has never been free of controversy.
The licences in question are issued not by a national regulator but by island-level bodies such as the Mwali International Services Authority (MISA). The Banque Centrale des Comores, the country's central bank, has stated publicly that such authorities lack the legal standing to license financial firms, and has described the MISA register as a fabricated entity with no genuine presence in the Union's jurisdiction.
That backdrop may help explain what has happened since. The same prop firms that arrived in the Comoros increasingly appear to be moving on.
- The5ers’ Founders’ CFD Broker Unit Receives a Seychelles Licence
- US Prop Firms Are Now Moving Inside the CFTC Perimeter. An Opportunity or a Survival Strategy?
- FundedHive Prop Firm CEO Calls Consistency Rule "a Payout Trap"
Trading Up
Mauritius, meanwhile, has been the offshore destination of choice for established CFD brokers. Many, including the big brands, run their global offshore operations under a Mauritius license.
Its FSC maintains a genuine public register and carries a more established reputation as an offshore financial centre. Now, prop firms appear to be looking for this offshore legitimacy.
FundingPips obtained an Investment Dealer licence in June 2026. FNmarkets, Hola Prime and Finotive Markets have each been authorised under the FSC as well, and in several cases, the firms now present their brokerage services under the Mauritius entity rather than the Comoros one.
The pattern is hard to miss, even if the reasoning behind it is not spelled out. None of the firms has framed the shift as a repudiation of the Comoros, and it is possible the moves reflect nothing more than ordinary maturation, a business growing into a more credible jurisdiction as its ambitions expand. Mauritius offers tax advantages, treaty access and a recognised framework that the Comoros cannot readily match.
Yet the timing invites a question the industry has not fully answered. Is the migration being driven, at least in part, by lingering doubts over whether a Comoros licence means anything at all?
With the central bank disowning the island registries and trade coverage repeatedly flagging their contested status, a Mauritius authorisation appears to offer something the Comoros version arguably cannot, the assurance that a real regulator stands behind it.
For now, the firms involved have largely let the licences speak for themselves. Whether this becomes an industry-wide rerouting or settles into a two-tier arrangement in which firms hold both jurisdictions for different purposes remains to be seen. What seems clearer is that the offshore map for prop trading is being redrawn, and Mauritius, for the moment, sits close to its centre.
