Payfone alliance with Serve, American Express’ new digital payments platform, to accelerate growth in mobile payments and international expansion
American Express (NYSE:AXP), and Payfone (www.payfone.com), a leading mobile payment processing service, announced a strategic alliance to create and power a new global mobile checkout service. As part of the agreement, Payfone will combine its advanced mobile authorization and payment services with American Express’ recently launched digital payments platform, Serve.
Working together, Serve and Payfone will provide consumers with the ability to make purchases from online merchants using their mobile phone number at checkout. Consumers will be able to link their mobile numbers to a variety of payment methods including their pre-or-postpaid mobile operator account, as well as via a customer’s Serve account.
“This alliance brings together Serve’s unified online, mobile and real-world functionality with Payfone’s advanced mobile authorization and payment services to deliver a seamless payment solution,” said Dan Schulman, Group President, Enterprise Growth, American Express. “The alliance is an important next step for the international roll out of Serve. We look forward to working with Payfone as we evolve the Serve platform to provide the most advanced payment solutions for buyers and sellers, while setting new standards in security, simplicity and reliability.”
Payfone is unique in leveraging the existing assets of mobile operators, such as the global SS7 signaling network for directly connected payment authorization and processing. This approach distinguishes Payfone from other competitors.
Payfone’s unique IP focuses on driving merchant’s sales conversion and revenue yield while managing fraud using new factors of authentication that are inherent in the mobile operator networks. For consumers, it means greater choice in payment methods and the most frictionless user experience, across any device.
