With each passing year, our smartphones/cell phones/mobile devices, which ever term you prefer, get more technologically advanced. First, we had cameras added without flash, with flash and then a front camera, we’ve now moved to video, we’ve progressed to having applications such as Skype and Facetime, and we are able to link our laptops, tables, email accounts together to have anything and everything accessible all in one place. So what’s next? How about the possibility to pay for items with just your smartphone?
American Express, issued one of the first widely accepted plastic charge cards back in 1959 and have more or less remained a top provided ever since. According to Beyond the Credit Cards: Q&A with Dan Schulman of American Express by Jessica Leber, “American Express is the third-largest United States credit card issuer preparing for a future without plastic” by launching their Serve card. Serve is a prepaid, reloadable card, now if you are like me; I was wondering what makes this any different than my current debit card? Serve is a card that is part Internet service and part debit card, they’ve already partnered with Verizon and Sprint to have Serve placed on their phones to act as a virtual wallet for us consumers. This new card by American Express has also partner with Facebook and added an application where you will be able to send money to your friends through Facebook if you wanted, clearly showing PayPal that there’s someone new in town. Serve is a card targeted for us, college students, young adults who are technologically friendly, we are just starting to establish credit and the best part it’s one of their only cards that do not have a service fee. Technology, bill pay, smartphone applications and more are all evolving why not how we make every day transaction?
American Express’ Serve card has yet to make a significant impact on our everyday transactions but five years from now that could all change. Approximately 85 percent of transactions across the world are in cash, this is a percentage I do not see drastically decreasing in a few years but could potentially especially with our generation, unless you work a tip job the majority of us seem to use plastic verses cash, I’m not a 100 percent certain we’ll rely on our phones to handle this just yet.