Why Bankers Should Follow Amex’s Digital Wallet Moves

American Express Co. knows good real estate.

Today, the credit card company announced a new app for users of its digital payments platform Serve that lets them  make, request and send payments through Facebook.

“We’re constantly working to bring our customers a seamless and consistent payment experience – one that makes sense for our increasingly social lives, whether that’s paying a friend back for movie tickets or sending someone money for your share of the vacation house – it can now be sent on Facebook,” said Dan Schulman, group president of enterprise growth, in a statement.

This is how Serve’s Facebook app works for users: 1. Pick a friend to send money to. 2. Enter the dollar amount. 3. Click send.

Though the actions are simple and clear, which bodes well for usage, there’s one part of the app I’m not sure Facebook users will like. Once a “send money” request is made by a user, Amex says “a message is immediately posted to the recipient’s Facebook wall providing directions on where to collect their money or to sign up for Serve.” Amex says the process for collecting payment is similar. Will consumers want money matters expressed on their walls? I’m not so convinced. Nonetheless, a major good quality the app has going for it is there are no fees to send, receive or request money. Plus, no matter how much or how little this app will grow out the Serve user base, the move does show Amex is clearly re-imagining the ways in which it touches consumers. And in the emerging payments scene, being nimble to possibilities is key to the success of how many consumers will use a new product.

Amex’s latest move follows the footsteps of PayPal, a company that first began allowing its users to send personal payments through Facebook last November.