Mobile banking and payment solution service provider, Celpay, plans to invest $10 million over the next five years to expand its operations in the southern African region.

The company, which already has operations in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, said the investment would increase its footprint in the fastest growing economies in southern Africa.

Malawi, Angola and Mozambique are some of the countries that the company has targeted and extend its footprint to first before covering other southern African countries.

The group chief executive officer, Lazarus Muchenze, said the company wants to create a seamless banking platform in the region providing a solution to the problem of low bank account penetration.

“We are trying to cover all the countries in the Southern Development Community (SADC) in the long-term but over the five years, we are injecting a minimum of $10 million in this region,” Muchenze told the local Post Newspaper.

In Zambia the company has a network of agents through which it facilitates banking services and payment solutions using cellular network infrastructure, providing a solution to poor banking and payment infrastructure.

Muchenze said the company envisions the mobile payment system to be a leverage point for people to enter formal banking while access to financial services is still low.