Mamo

What would a payments product designed for life in the UAE actually look like?

2018-2020

I helped shape and design the original product at ConsenSys, working closely with the founding team across research, product strategy and interaction design. The concept was later spun out as Mamo, which became the UAE’s first independent payments provider.

The UAE has a large and unusually diverse population, with different relationships to banks, cash, remittances and shared spending.

We spoke with people across these communities to understand how they managed everyday payments: splitting bills, supporting family members, contributing to shared funds and sending money abroad. The challenge wasn’t simply making payments faster. It was building something people could understand and trust across very different financial circumstances.

One recurring behaviour was that money often moved through groups. Friends settled bills together, families pooled funds, and people regularly supported relatives in other countries.

That led us to explore a wallet built around people rather than bank details. Users could pay one another, settle group expenses and contribute to shared funds without needing to understand the financial infrastructure underneath.

The original product was designed within the Ethereum ecosystem and explored infrastructure such as state channels. None of that could become the user’s problem.

My focus was making each action feel familiar: who the money was going to, how much would move, what would happen next, and whether the payment had succeeded.

That meant treating identity, status, confirmation and recovery as core parts of the experience—not edge cases added later.

The work established the foundations for a product grounded in the region’s actual spending behaviours, rather than importing a generic European or American banking model.

Mamo was spun out of ConsenSys in 2019. I rejoined the team in 2020 as its focus expanded towards everyday consumer payments and merchant settlement.