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They did the same with us for the Retirement Visa - more than 3 weeks to open a Absa account and we eventually gave up.  I don't see the point in having to have a Mauritian bank account either way - Premium or Retirement. MCB - they want your DNA before they approve your account - that was another messing us around situation.  Coming from the UK, it was in no ways beneficial for us to have a Mauritian bank account whatsoever as we were bring foreign currency into the Country anyways. And MCB wanted documents from our UK Bank which you cannot get online, or emailed or anything like that (for security reasons) and therefore have to be in the UK to collect this document or sign for it. (we were not pre-warned about this). We eventually decided against the move, as everything was taking very long and was just too complicated and left Mauritius, which is such a pity and it was very sad. 

This sounds ridiculous.

It is such a shame -- the EDB says it should be easy after getting the approval in principle for the retirement visa, and the banks make it difficult! Please feedback to the EDB, and show the EDB website to the banks.

Just want to share my experience with ABC bank here. The most insane requirements I've ever seen.

They asked about my income first and sent me to the private banking department. There they told me that it's impossible to open standard account with my income and I have to use package according to my income (I told them $10k/month). It doesn't matter if I need this package or not. This package requires to freeze $200k on the deposit there + a crazy list of documents.

BTW, it sounds weird to have free 200k for such a level of income (she said this is for 200-500k Rs).

I've never agreed to participate in this madness for some tourist visa. Amount of wasted time is already insane. So we just decided to leave, very annoyed. Initially I was going to apply for residence permit via investment next year. Now this will never happen for sure.

This was actually for a retirement visa. We opened it on island with AfrAsia Bank () before we even had our permit. There was some paperwork to jump through. We have opened up a fixed term GBP deposit account, circa 4.6% to 4.8% depending on the term. A local MUR account for which we have a debit card. We also enquired about a credit card, and they suggested that they would be happy to consider such a request, but we didn't do it. That one is for the next vacation. Creadit cards are available in MUR/USD/Euro but not Sterling. As far as I can tell there was no minimum income/deposit and they seem to respond to emails. Their online banking is not the most comprehensive but it is adequate. As far as I can tell I have not yet seen any significant bank changes. If anyone needs a personal contact email address just PM me.