On Monday, American Express unveiled 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.”
In brief, Serve allows consumers to make purchases and person-to-person payments online, 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.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Dan Schulman, group president of enterprise growth at AmEx, says there is ample reason for optimism in light of the company’s mobile payment ambitions. “This is really the first time that American Express is going to be able to address those consumers that typically would utilize either a debit card or checking account,” said Schulman.
“There’s a large cultural shift happening at American Express in terms of us really moving to becoming more of a software- and platform-based company,” he concluded.
Underscoring just how new such technology truly is, the company says it plans to quickly evolve the Serve platform by adding new features and functionality “as we learn from consumer and merchant experiences.”
Serve is available now in the US and is expected to launch into other international markets over the coming year.
