South Africa has proposed a sweeping overhaul of its decades-old rules governing money flows, aiming to bolster its position as a financial hub for Africa and attract more investor capital.

The finance ministry's proposals include raising discretionary offshore allowances for individuals, regulating crypto assets, and easing capital-flow restrictions.

The Johannesburg Stock Exchange estimates the changes could attract at least 10 trillion rand ($608 billion) in investment over time.

Much of the legislation being overhauled dates back to 1961, with some provisions originating as early as 1933, Vukile Davidson, deputy director-general of financial policy at National Treasury, told Reuters.

"At the time, exchange control was principally used to deal with a wide range of issues beyond just capital flows management," said Davidson. "It was used to manage the domestic revenue base, to manage illicit flows, to ensure the stability of the financial sector."

That blunt instrument is now being replaced with more targeted reforms, he said, signalling South Africa's readiness to modernise and adopt a "positive bias" approach to managing cross-border capital flows.

National Treasury published the draft circular for public comment on April 17.

A key aim of the overhaul is to address long-standing structural problems that have seen South Africa lose financial capital to rival hubs.

Under the proposals, asset managers would for the first time be allowed to run non-rand funds - which raise, deploy and report in foreign currencies such as U.S. dollars - from a South African base. Current rules require such funds to be legally domiciled offshore, even when they are managed locally.