Apple Pay Could Reap a Volume Bonanza as It Includes AmEx Corporate Cards

Corporate card stalwart American Express Co. says corporate cards it issues on behalf of U.S. employers now can be used with Apple Pay.

AmEx says its portfolio is the first major corporate card file to be activated for Apple Inc.’s mobile-payment service.

Apple Pay’s potential for additional spend with corporate cards is significant. In its 2014 annual report, AmEx says it had 6.9 million corporate cards on issue last year, with an average spend of $26,706. It's card-billed business for the segment in 2014 was $186.7 billion in 2014, or about 18% of its overall $1.02 trillion in card-billed business.

AmEx says most of its corporate cards can be enrolled in Apple Pay, an exception being prepaid cards. AmEx’s consumer cards were eligible for Apple Pay at its launch last October. AmEx corporate card customers include Facebook, General Electric, and Halliburton.

AmEx says the process to add a corporate card to Apple Pay is the same as it is for adding an AmEx consumer card.

As for other mobile-payments services, like Android Pay and Samsung Pay, which have yet to debut, AmEx says it cannot comment on other digital wallets, but the corporate card division “continues to invest and expand digital offerings in ways that maximize security and enhance the user experience,” a spokeswoman says.

In other AmEx news, BloombergBusiness reports that ValueAct Capital Management has taken an approximately $1 billion stake in the card issuer and acquirer. ValueAct is known as an activist investor.

AmEx has been challenged recently by a number of business setbacks, including the loss of the Costco Wholesale Corp. cobranded card program, court decisions against some of its card-acceptance rules, and declining revenue and profits.