American Express has ceaselessly driven into our heads, “Don’t leave home without it” as the commercial message for its Serve digital payments platform, so it can tell us, “Don’t go online without it.” PlaySpan for $190 million in February. And it suggests that the battle to control American Express launches digital payments platform

American Express launches digital payments platform

American Express has ceaselessly driven into our heads, “Don’t leave home without it” as the commercial message for its American Express card. Now it’s launching its Serve digital payments platform, so it can tell us, “Don’t go online without it.”
The move to give consumers new ways to spend, send and receive money online will help American Express go to war with PayPal and Visa, which bought PlaySpan for $190 million in February. And it suggests that the battle to control digital payments online is going to be a big one, since billions upon billions of dollars in transaction fees are at stake. The overall goal is to provide a digital alternative to cash.
Just last week, mobile payments firm Boku hooked up with O2 in Germany to offer mobile payments for physical goods as well as digital goods. With Serve, consumers can make purchases and person-to-person payments through a variety of ways: via online,  via mobile phones or via the millions of merchants who accept American Express Cards.
American Express says that Serve unifies multiple payment options into a single account that can be funded from a bank account, debit, credit or charge card, or by receiving money from another Serve account. Serve’s aim is to get rid of cash, check, or debit cards by being more convenient. Serve accounts can be access from apps on Apple iOS and Android devices. Users can also access accounts on Serve.com and on Facebook.
Until now, American Express wasn’t reaching a lot of consumers who don’t use traditional credit cards. Over time, the company will add new features and functions to Serve. American Express will also promote serve with a wide range of partners and deliver customized offers to consumers.
“Serve is a new type of payment platform that isn’t tied to a single card or mobile operating system,” said Dan Schulman, group president of enterprise growth at American Express. “It’s a flexible, easy to use platform, which from day one brings tremendous assets to the alternative payments space, including the millions of merchants who accept American Express.”
For the first six months, American Express will waive fees for consumers. Consumers can set up an online account with Serve, funding it from bank accounts, debit cards, credit or charge cards, or other Serve accounts. Customers can use those accounts to send and receive money to friends, pay bills and make purchases online.the account comes with a reloadable Serve prepaid card that you can use at any merchant or automated teller machine that accepts American Express cards.
In contrast to debit cards, Serve lets users create sub-accounts, for spouses or children. That allows parents to set allowances for children or others in the family. American Express acquired the foundation for serve from its acquisition of Revolution Money in early 2010. Serve is starting in the U.S. now and will roll out overseas in the coming year. It is doing a marketing pilot with merchants in Eugene, Ore.
The first partners for the platform are Ticketmaster, expense reporting firm Concur and Flipswap. American Express plans to go after partners in commerce, gaming, entertainment and social networking, Schulman said. Ticketmaster will use Serve as an option for customers to buy and sell tickets with other customers. Concur will use it as an expense management and reimbursement method for transactions processed by Concur’s small business expense reporting service, Concur Breeze. Another partner, Flipswap will use Serve to issue refunds more quickly to consumers who sell or trade in their old mobile phones for reuse or recycling.
Serve is also working with five charities: Autism Speaks, Best Friends Animal Society, Malaria No More, Save The Children and Stand Up For Kids. Users can make donations to those charities via a donations widget, which can be downloaded from Serve.com or its Facebook site. That widget can be shared on other web sites to solicit donations. American Express will match contributions via the widget, up to $100,000 for each charity.