CapitalPay targets Africa’s trade and payments infrastructure

In a major shift in the international logistics sphere, Garang Malek is positioning CapitalPay International around payment systems linked to trade, logistics, customs, agriculture, and institutional transactions across East Africa and South Sudan.

Malek is expanding the company’s presence in sectors where financial transactions are closely tied to wider operational processes, including freight administration, customs, professional services, agricultural payments, and public-sector systems.

The company has activities spanning Kenya, Tanzania, and South Sudan, with its projects focused largely on connecting payments with the records and processes that generate them.

Rather than concentrating primarily on consumer payments, its stated business model centers on reconciliation, transaction management, and settlement systems for organizations handling high-volume or regulated transactions.

Notably, Kenya has become one of the company’s more prominent markets through its partnership with the Kenya International Freight and Warehousing Association (KIFWA).

The partnership involves the development of a centralized clearing and forwarding management system intended to serve more than 1,200 licensed clearing agents.

The proposed system is designed to bring together functions including professional records, payments, compliance, cargo visibility, and dispute management.

The project places CapitalPay within Kenya’s wider logistics ecosystem, where clearing agents interact with importers, exporters, transporters, financial institutions, government agencies, and port operators.

The importance of such systems is also linked to Kenya’s role as a regional trade gateway. Cargo handled through the Port of Mombasa serves both the domestic market and several neighboring countries.

For businesses operating across this chain, payment records often have to be matched with invoices, cargo documentation, professional services, and regulatory requirements.

Reconciliation is central to its approach. It involves matching a payment to the appropriate payer, invoice, service, or beneficiary and ensuring that the transaction can subsequently be verified.

In logistics and other institutional transactions, this process can affect whether services are recognized as paid, obligations are cleared, and disputes are resolved.

CapitalPay’s model incorporates invoicing, validation, matching, settlement, and reporting within connected processes.

The approach reflects a broader shift towards digital systems that seek to link financial transactions with the operational information surrounding them, rather than treating payment as a standalone activity.

In Tanzania, CapitalPay’s activities extend into customs and clearing services through the Tanzania Customs Agent Management System (T-CAMS).

The system has been presented as a platform for managing professional payments, compliance records, and transactions involving licensed customs agents.

The objective is to link professional fees to the transactions that generate them, providing a record of services performed and payments associated with those services.

For customs agents handling complex transactions, such systems could help provide greater visibility over outstanding fees and payment status, although the effectiveness of such platforms will ultimately depend on adoption and integration among participating institutions.

CapitalPay has also announced work involving agricultural payments in Tanzania, including a proposed system associated with Korosho Cooperative Joint Enterprise.

The project focuses on improving the disbursement of funds to farmers by validating bank details before payments are made.

Incorrect or mismatched account information can result in failed transactions, creating additional administrative work for both cooperatives and beneficiaries.

The proposed system seeks to address the problem before funds are transferred while maintaining records that can be used for subsequent reconciliation.

The agricultural application represents another extension of the company’s broader payments infrastructure model into a sector where organizations may have to process large numbers of transactions simultaneously.

Malek’s involvement in digital financial and public-service infrastructure predates the company’s more recent expansion in East Africa.

Earlier work associated with Crawford Capital in South Sudan included electronic taxation, customs automation and digital government systems.

Development-sector records have linked Crawford Capital to digital systems developed for South Sudanese government institutions, including electronic tax and customs platforms.

A Japan International Cooperation Agency report, for example, recorded collaboration between South Sudan’s National Revenue Authority and Crawford Capital in the development of an e-Customs system introduced in Juba and Nimule.

The World Bank has also documented electronic tax and government-service systems associated with Crawford and CapitalPay in South Sudan.

These projects provide context for Malek’s current focus on systems that connect financial transactions with institutional processes.

CapitalPay has also pursued partnerships with technology companies as it develops its infrastructure offering.

An announced partnership involving GoPomelo, Tencent Cloud, and Techtanium brings together cloud infrastructure, payment technology, and implementation capabilities around CapitalPay’s institutional payments activities.

Such partnerships allow the company to rely on specialized technology providers while focusing on the transaction and operational requirements of particular sectors.

The strategy is also evident in its work with logistics organizations and agricultural institutions, where sector-specific partners provide access to established networks and knowledge of existing workflows.

The various projects suggest a business model focused less on conventional consumer payments and more on the infrastructure supporting institutional and commercial transactions.

Its target users include clearing agents seeking payment and transaction management systems, agricultural organizations disbursing funds to farmers, logistics businesses handling cargo-related obligations and institutions managing multiple payment channels.

The common element is the relationship between a financial transaction and the operational record attached to it.

CapitalPay’s expansion across Kenya, Tanzania, and South Sudan therefore places the company in a segment of Africa’s growing digital infrastructure market where payments intersect with trade, logistics, government services, and agriculture.

The immediate challenge will be translating announced projects and partnerships into sustained adoption and measurable operational outcomes.