American Express plans 100 million USD to fund digital commerce startups

Financial services company American Express on Tuesday announced a 100 million-U.S. dollar investment plan to fund early stage digital commerce startups, as part of a multi-year initiative designed to help accelerate the company's digital transformation. In a press release, the company said that the digital commerce initiative will be managed out of its newly established office in Silicon Valley. "The payment industry is undergoing a fundamental change as the very nature of commerce is redefined," said Harshul Sanghi, the company's vice president of the Enterprise Growth Group and director of the new Silicon Valley office. The digital commerce initiative will look to make investments in companies focused on serving critical parts of the digital commerce experience, including loyalty and rewards, mobile and online payment management, fee-based services, security and fraud detection and data analysis, said the company. Tech giants and large financial corporations have been vying to grab their shares of the booming digital commerce market. American Express has announced payment partnerships with Foursquare, Facebook and Zynga. It also plans to team up with ISIS, the mobile payment joint venture formed by U.S. telecommunication companies Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile USA which are expected to launch a mobile payment system next year. Internet search giant Google has been rolling out its mobile payment program Google Wallet, enabling certain smartphone users to make payments in their daily life.