American Express Launches Amex For Developers

American Express announced Monday (Oct. 17) the launch of Amex for Developers, a new portal providing a single point of access to company APIs and developer resources in such categories as payment services, customized experiences, data intelligence and fraud prevention. The portal is launching with an initial set of products; ongoing releases are expected to include additional products in new categories, the credit card company said in a press release.

“American Express has long used APIs to enable selected merchant partners to grow their businesses by engaging their customers who are cardmembers in innovative ways,” said Marc Gordon, EVP and chief information officer. “With the launch of Amex for Developers, we are expanding access to our APIs to additional partners, creating new opportunities for business growth, both for our partners and for American Express.”

Created for developers, the portal contains a set of tools and resources and supports an end-to-end, self-service workflow, so software engineers can rapidly create, innovate and test new concepts. The portal includes a “sandbox” environment that has been architected to give developers the freedom to quickly begin testing and experimenting with American Express capabilities, without access to actual cardmember or merchant data.

In addition to processing payments on its network, American Express manages both the acquiring relationship with merchants and the card-issuing side of the business, creating a “closed loop.” The portal has been designed to give developers access, through its APIs and other products, to capabilities that power billions of transactions around the globe and support innovation at each stage of the digital commerce journey, in a way that is consistent with American Express’ longstanding commitment to privacy and safeguarding cardmember information.

“Amex for Developers provides the opportunity for software engineers around the world to innovate with American Express,” Sathish Muthukrishnan, vice president of enterprise API engineering and digital partnerships, added in the press release. “This will enable more developers to apply their creativity to our APIs and other products, which already have been leveraged by such partners as Facebook, Twitter, Uber and Best Buy.”