M-wallet: American Express’s Serve Opening to China
- American Express announces an agreement with Chinese payment services specialist Lianlian group to allow for the launch of Serve in China. The platform should contribute to develop the m-wallet (mobile top-up, bill payments, etc.) and widen the network’s range of possible customer targets (younger generations for instance).
- Also, American Express has invested 125 million dollars in Lianlian Pay subsidiary and considers this move as a first step towards large scale expansion.
- Lianlian Group was founded in 2004; it represents about 300 million mobile accounts and over 300,000 merchants. With Serve, it should begin with mobile top-up services and further on enhance its range of offers through proposing financial products.
- New American Express Enterprise Growth Group offices will be set up in Hangzhou to provide technical support to the partner group.
- Through Serve, American Express can pursue a “new markets”-oriented strategy and successfully reaches China, seldom accessible by western player. It also plans to gain other regions, including other Asian countries, as well as South America and the Middle East.
- China has long been part of the group’s objectives and it already counts ICBC, China Merchants Bank and Bank of China among its partners. In 2010, CMB announced a dual card on an initially CUP-devoted market. In 2011, CMB signed an agreement with the e-PSP Tenpay to enable its customers to purchase goods from non-Chinese-based websites with their AmEx card.