American Express Partners Verizon Wireless
- In March 2011, American Express announced the creation of a new digital payment platform called Serve. This e-payment and P2P funds transfer service should make exchanges easier in an environment pressured by the development of the e-commerce and online purchase of digital goods.
- In order to enhance these offers, American Express partners telecom specialist Verizon Wireless. The two companies announced they intended to develop an m-payment solution unlike all other traditional means of payments.
- Online payment transactions as well as P2P funds transfers could be directly performed using the user’s Verizon Wireless Smartphone through Serve iPhone and Android apps.
- These companies wished to develop a solution likely to make online purchases easier. In their opinion, using a card to pay online would neither be convenient nor time saving and would not fit the new digital business model.
- When purchasing Revolution Money end 2009, American Express already showed its interest in the m-payment market.
- Through these new services, American Express also aims at widening its potential range of customers and reaching younger generations. Serve is also proposed to unded-18 customers and parental monitoring of the expenses can be set up.
- The number of m-payment transactions has been increasing steadily; it is also being helped by Smartphones’s adoption rates worldwide and the development of NFC technologies. American Express wished to secure its position on this market through developing pioneering solutions and associating with a telecom operator.