American Express on Monday launched "Serve," an app that turns a desktop, mobile phone, and Facebook account into a virtual wallet.
With Serve, customers can send and receive money, pay bills, or make digital purchases through a cloud-based peer-to-peer network. For now, Serve supports iOS and Android operating systems, though a BlackBerry app is on the way, Dan Shulman, head of Enterprise Growth at American Express told PCMag.
"We wanted to create a payment platform that enables consumers to be able to interact seamlessly between an online and offline environment, to become a seller and consumer in their own social network," Schulman said.
To start, set up an online account at Serve.com. Accounts can be funded by any bank account, debit, credit, and charge card, or even another Serve account, which may appeal especially to youths who don't have their own credit cards. Parents can create and manage sub-accounts for friends and family who are linked to their master account.
The key difference between Serve and say, PayPal, is personalization. A "cornerstone" of Serve's long-term vision, according to a statement, is to partner with retailers in sending out personalized coupons, rewards, and incentives to their customers. Its first three partners are Ticketmaster, Concur, and Flipswap.
As mobile companies rush to be the first to deploy widespread mobile wallets, or "m-wallets," Schulman said Serve will allow consumers to make the same mobile transactions without the near-field communication (NFC) chips that mobile manufacturers are taking so long to embed.
"I believe NFC or another standard is going to happen eventually, whether it takes one, three, five years. But consumers like you and I want to be able to get cash out of our accounts using our mobile phones today! he said. "Because Amex is a merchant acquirer with millions of partnerships, we can do this immediately. Today is Day One.
As the U.S. moves towards NFC, led by ISIS and reportedly Google, Schulman says Serve will link NFC capabilities to its own platform. Serve is also introducing payment "widgets" that allow customers to buy and sell items through social networks. To start, Serve has partnered with five charities – Speaks, Best Friends Animal Society, Malaria No More, Save The Children and Stand Up For Kids – to let them raise money through a donations widget, downloadable at Serve.com and Facebook.com/paywithserve. For a limited time, Serve will match all contributions via the widget up to $100,000 for each charity.
For more, see "What Is NFC, and Why Should You Care?"