Suggestions
Firas Ahmad
Emerging Markets Innovator | Fintech | Group CEO AzamPay / Sarafu | firasahmad.substack.com
Firas Ahmad is a seasoned entrepreneur and business leader with extensive experience in the fintech and renewable energy sectors.1 He is the Group CEO and Co-Founder of AzamPay and Sarafu.14 In addition, Firas is a Co-Founder and Director at AzamPesa, focusing on mobile wallet solutions.14 He also holds the position of Director of Business Development at Bakhresa Group, where responsibilities include global business development and strategic growth for a leading conglomerate.14 Firas is also a Co-Founder of Grassroots Energy, dedicated to producing renewable natural gas from agricultural waste in various markets.14
Ahmad's experience includes:
- AzamPay As Group CEO and Co-Founder of AzamPay, Firas conceived, organized, and launched a payments platform that integrates with local banks and MNO wallets in East Africa.14
- Sarafu Firas also launched Sarafu, a B2B digital commerce platform that allows retail shop owners in Tanzania to procure supplies and manage payments.134
- AzamPesa Co-Founder and Director at AzamPesa, a mobile wallet company focused on creating value-added digital payments products for Tanzania.124
- Bakhresa Group Director of Business Development responsible for global business development for the Bakhresa Group of companies.14
- Grassroots Energy Co-Founder of a distributed power startup focused on micro-grid applications in India.14
Prior to his entrepreneurial ventures, Firas contributed to clean-tech initiatives and consulted on healthcare and education policies.14 He holds a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.14
Highlights
A big challenge in the Tanzania market is digitizing point-of-sale (POS) payments via Mobile Money. POS payments remain almost 97%+ in cash because neither consumers nor merchants believe the associated fees are worth the service.
Having said that, in Tanzania it is often the case both merchants and consumers pay to process a transaction - creating a double incentive not to use the service. In developed markets typically businesses absorb the cost of accepting digital payments to offer convenience to consumers and increase sales.
This incentive is not there for Tanzanian merchants, in Tanzania, neither merchant nor consumer believe digital adds any convenience or value to POS transations vis a vis the current cost.
How can we chip away at this problem?
We started a program with Azam Ice-Cream three wheel kiosks where we provided AzamPesa QR codes to vendors that allow them to process digital payments.
Why would they use it? What are the charges?
The ice cream seller is not charged to process the payment, the consumer covers a digital surcharge. Why would the consumer pay the extra amount?
Ice cream is a luxury good, people dont buy ice cream because they need to, they buy it because they want to. It is an impulse buy. As a result, a premium price for a digital payment is reasonable given the nature of the product. It is akin to paying $1.00 for a soda from a vending machine vs. paying $.50 from the grocery store. While the surcharge is not nearly as high as that, it is a modest 100 TZS (about $.04 cents)
The pricing is designed for convenience. The idea is, should you not have small change, you pay digitally. The vendor is happy (they get a small bonus) and the consumer doesn't have to worry about carrying cash for a small luxury item.
We are still in the early days of this experiment but we do believe creating the right incentives based on the actual commercial transaction taking place is what is required to drive digital adoption at the POS.
I do not think Tanzania will accept a one-size fits all solution, there may be times the merchant pays, there may be times the consumer pays and the surcharge amount must be calibrated by business vertical or segment - but the underlying question is what are the incentives to transact and how are those incentives incorporated into the product?
We plan to experiment on this with @Azampesa and focus on scaling real results around digital adoption and usage.
More to come.

