American Express: More Than a Card Company
Known for its cardmember services, American Express continues to innovate in new payments areas beyond its traditional credit card business. In early 2011 the New York-based company introduced Serve, an online payments service similar to PayPal that allows customers to make web payments from an account linked to a credit or debit card account. The card giant later reached an agreement with Verizon to integrate Serve on many of the telecom provider's mobile devices. American Express also jumped in along with Visa, MasterCard and Discover last year to support mobile payments from the Isis NFC system.
[After Much Fanfare, Isis Launches with Pragmatic Expectations.]
More recently the company launched a digital treasury management platform, PAYVE, for corporate payments. Companies using PAYVE can consolidate and automate all of their payment types and clients on one platform, making payments more efficient and smoothing the transition from paper check processing to digital processing.
Meanwhile, American Express also continues to take a leadership role in engaging customers through social media. New York-based Corporate Insights recently recognized American Express for its strong social media strategy, particularly for its use of Twitter, and noted that the company's "five Facebook pages draw a large and engaged audience." Perhaps it's only a matter of time before the company tries to parlay that engagement into the next payments innovation.
--Jonathan Camhi
