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MTN Group, Africa’s largest telecom company by subscribers, has announced that it plans to apply for a Payment Service Banking (PSB) licence in Nigeria, following the release of the draft Guidelines for Licensing and Regulation of Payment Service Banks by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The CEO of MTN Group, Rob Shuter, disclosed this on Tuesday at the AfricaCom conference, a telecom, media and technology event currently taking place in South Africa.

“We will be applying for a payment service banking licence in Nigeria in the next month or so, and if all goes according to plan, we will also be launching mobile money in Nigeria probably around Q2 of 2019,” said Shuter.

According to the apex bank, the PSBs will facilitate transactions in remittance services, micro-savings and withdrawal services in a technology-driven environment to further deepen financial inclusion in the country. The National Financial Inclusion Strategy, launched by the CBN in 2012, aims to reduce financial exclusion rate to 20 percent by 2020.

MTN Group’s CEO also said the company will launch mobile money services in Nigeria and South Africa in the first half of 2019. The announcement substantiates previous comments by the CEO to the effect that MTN has no plans to exit Nigeria despite its spat with the CBN over alleged illegal fund repatriation. The CBN is asking MTN to return $8.1 billion of repatriated dividends.

The Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) has also accused MTN of owing $2 billion in taxes.

According to Shuter, the launch of mobile money is part of the company’s efforts to become the biggest provider of mobile financial services in Africa.

Currently, the South Africa-based telecom company offers mobile money services in 14 of the 22 markets where it operates. It also has about 27 million mobile money customers. In the next few years, it hopes to increase that number to 60 million.