So, for all those folks out there that STILL don't think bitcoin will ever catch on, American Express disagrees. AXP has teamed up with Abra's bitcoin wallet to use a global app for money-transfer. Yup, Amex users can buy bitcoin with the Amex cards. The acceptance is growing and picking up speed.
(Bill Taylor/CEO)
"Digital bitcoin wallet Abra is introducing its digital money transfer application to a vast landscape of new users thanks to its integration with American Express, the companies announced today. “This is the first time a major credit card has partnered with a digital card,” Abra CEO and founder Bill Barhydt toldBank Innovation.
“And it definitely opens us up to a new population.”This integration will allow American Express cards users to fund their Abra wallets as well as instantly send payments or withdraw cash across the globe by using Bitcoin and avoiding exchange rates.
More importantly, Barhydt explained, this partnership expands Abra’s presence with two different kinds of populations: the “cash consumer,” and the “upper-income bank consumer.”
The cash consumer is a person that can buy a prepaid debt card like an American Express prepaid available in a local pharmacy or stationary store or a Walmart’s Bluebird Card (by Amex) and load that money into their Abra Wallet and then withdraw it as cash in the user’s local currency denomination. The upper-income bank consumer can enter their American Express credit card number and send money to another user through their phone.
For New York-based multinational financial services corporation, American Express or Amex, the decision to integrate Abra comes nearly two years after it invested an undisclosed amount in the company during its first round of funding in September 2015.
“This idea of integrating Abra into its services was contemplated from the beginning when they were investors,” Barhydt said. “They wanted exposure to this phenomenon of bitcoin and blockchain, and what we at Abra were doing with it.”... Read Full Story at BankInnovation