American Express Goes After Paypal Market With Serve

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A bit of a surprise out there for you who like your mobile payments through Paypal, whether you buy or sell, and pretty much anyone who uses eBay: the folks out at American Express have finally said “me, too!” and jumped into the market with their new program dubbed Serve.

Serve is a lot like Paypal, and actually includes many of the same basic concepts. Not only will you be able to transfer funds between Serve accounts, but also from your Serve account to a bank account or a credit card. You’ll also get a mobile app–for both iOS and Android, no sides chosen here!–and even get access to a reloadable prepaid card, the Serve card. And the Serve card will be taken anywhere that takes American Express, which, if the Visa commercials are to be believed, is almost nowhere worthwhile.

Word is that they’re still working on interesting twists like NFC (which Paypal actually already has, at least on a certain level), and they’re planning to get people on board with Serve by waiving pretty much every imaginable fee for the first six months of use, leaving me with the uncomfortable question of “just how many fees are going to be attached with this thing anyway?” And I’m having a tough time seeing how American Express, which is already kind of an also-ran behind Mastercard and Visa anyway, is going to compete with deeply-entrenched brand king Paypal, especially with its eBay connection.

Still though, if you’re already an American Express cardholder, and you don’t much like the thought of using Paypal (which is probably one teeny tiny little Venn diagram), you may have just what you’ve been waiting for all along with Serve. They’re already taking sign-ups, so if you’re game, you may want to get in and get signed up.