AmEx expects Serve to generate incremental transaction volume by attracting users who now mainly use cash or debit cards and avoid credit and charge cards –the latter two being AmEx’s core products. But Schulman said existing AmEx customers would find value in Serve. “I think it addresses a wide swath of demographics,” he said.
The new service also provides an opportunity for consumers to buy things with their mobile phones, and let up to four people use the same account.
Consumers can set up a Serve account through the Serve.com Web site or applications for Apple Inc.’s iPhone or smart phones running Google Inc.’s Android operating system. An app for Research in Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry smart phone is also in the works. A so-called master account can hold up to four sub-accounts for family members, friends, or employees. A parent, for example, could create a sub-account for a child away at college and put spending or other controls on it. AmEx itself puts transaction controls on Serve accounts, though Schulman did not provide details on how they are set.
The transaction controls feature is an interesting one because filtering what people can use a card or funds to purchase has been something that many companies want to implement. Currently, except for the IIAS system that filters at the SKU level or health care payments programs, SKU-level filtering is almost non-existent. Cards can be restricted from, or to, certain merchant category codes, but that is a broad level of filtering that may leave some holes in the system.
American Express has built a new system, and now they need to aggressively market it and educate consumers and merchants about the possibilities and benefits of it. In a blog post, Dan Schulman, the group president of enterprise growth, promises that the program will grow and evolve as technology changes and customers provide feedback. If this goes according to plan, Serve may be American Express’s key to twenty-first century payments.
Read the full Digital Transactions article at:http://www.digitaltransactions.net/news/story/2984
View the Serve Homepage and Blog At: http://www.blog.serve.com/
