American Express Launches Digital Payment Platform
American Express has launched Serve, a digital payment and commerce platform that gives consumers a new way to spend, send and receive money with services that go beyond the existing global payment networks. With Serve, consumers can make purchases and person-to-person (P2P) payments online (serve.com), via mobile phones, and at millions of merchants who accept American Express cards. Serve unifies multiple payment options into a single account that can be funded from a bank account, debit, credit or charge card, or by receiving money from another Serve account.
Serve is aimed at consumers who currently rely on cash, check and debit card. Serve accounts can be accessed via Serve Apple iOS and Android applications, at Serve.com and through Facebook. Through Serve, American Express aims to expand into new segments of the market that do not rely on traditional charge and credit cards to manage their day-to-day finances.
“Serve is a new type of payment platform that isn’t tied to a single card or mobile operating system. It’s a flexible, easy to use platform, which from day one brings tremendous assets to the alternative payments space and gives consumers an option to shop on-line and off-line at millions of merchants who accept American Express,” said Dan Schulman, group president, enterprise growth, American Express.
Ticketmaster will offer Serve as a platform for customers to make and collect payments toward ticket purchases from other customers. Concur will use Serve as an expense management and reimbursement method for transactions processed via Concur’s small business expense reporting service, Concur Breeze. Flipswap will use Serve to issue refunds more quickly to consumers who sell or trade in their old mobile and cell phones for reuse or recycling.