10 ms·

Amex for Developers

152 points by titomc 10y ago

kkirsche 10y ago
It's interesting for sure, but as a consumer rather than a business, is there a use case for this?
- ralmeida 10y ago
  Depending on what they mean by "Customized Experience", and what data does this allow access to, it may mean better integration with a number of consumer finance apps, such as Mint, YNAB, etc. Doesn't seem like it from the description in the website, though.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- elliottcarlson 10y ago
  Checking out on Delta via my Delta AmEx allows me to simply login to my AmEx account (saved via a password manager) and checkout without entering my actual card info. The convenience factor there is definitely nice.
- Fomite 10y ago
  Pay with Points is an interesting idea to see rewards accessible more broadly.
OliverJones 10y ago
Hmm. For the typical card-not-present (online) use case, stripe.com and paypal do a pretty darn good job of processing AMEX payment cards, as well as the others. Tokenization is vital in this age of cybermiscreants. Ya don't want customer payment card data in your dbms. The stripe.com API offers tokenization, and it offers the ability to send and validate data like zip/postcode, cvv and street address to cut fraud. They have an api for chargeback disputes, too. (The business I serve doesn't use it, instead we use the forms on their web site. We have dozens of disputes per decade, not worth programming.) Squareup.com (Square) does a good job with card-present transactions. And these service providers offer predictable processing fees. I wonder what's special about the AMEX APIs? Maybe somebody from AMEX can explain? Some of us are always looking for better ways to serve customers and handle payments efficiently.
- enra 10y ago
  One benefit can be that you access / pay with Amex points, which I think Stripe doesn't offer. Also I've seen Amex offer login/auth verification, where you a service can verify you as the actual Amex user, and possibly trust you more that way.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - wil421 10y ago
    I booked some museum visits in Italy this past summer. On a few of the sites I'd be sent to AMEX and enter some verification codes before the payment would process. Never seen it in the US but it would be nice. I feel more comfortable going directly to AMEX first. Some website payment systems are shady feeling.
- contingencies 10y ago
  offers tokenization s/tokenization/lockin/ # devil's advocate
  - wpietri 10y ago
    Not sure why this is downvoted, but it's a fair point. I know of a small business with a lot of subscriptions and this became a big issue for them when provider quality declined.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomschlick 10y ago
    From what I have seen you can easily contact support and they will export your customer's card number for import into another provider.
- ecommerceguy 10y ago
  >And these service providers offer the >highest< processing fees. FTFY The only people I've ever met that recommend Stripe are developers. The only people I'd recommend Square to are merchants whose avg ticket is less than $5 or are borderline hobbyists. The number of hardcore PP users has dropped significantly in the last 5 years, in my experience, to less than 10%.
WhitneyLand 10y ago
Wow, talk about too little too late. This kind of late to the party strategy is why startups will always be needed to lead innovation. The irony is the highest ranking person at AmEx who really understands this is probably a pretty smart guy who had to fight and lobby for years to rally enough support to make this happen. edit: Its worse than I thought. A quick search shows they brought in high level talent from Google, Amazon, etc. I'm willing to bet these guys pitched some cool ideas before leaving frustrated after their short tenures.
- guruparan18 10y ago
  And it appears they only accept XML. I am not sure if this is a considerable change with the trend to support JSON file format.
- Zelphyr 10y ago
  I've heard how Amex can be from a friend who has them as a client. They refuse to let her host their instance of her product on AWS because Amex's security team supposedly hasn't vetted AWS yet. This despite the kinds of customers Amazon already hosts on AWS (the CIA comes to mind). Not to mention that she has several other very large banks as clients that don't have a problem at all being hosted on AWS. Or that exactly zero of the data she deals with is in any way related to sensitive customer data because the product is used by Amex's marketing department. As an Amex customer I'm glad to know they have strict requirements but the fact is, they're shunning a massive cloud infrastructure service like AWS over a piddly little local co-locted hosting company.
  - spotman 10y ago
    This is the story of many "enterprise" companies sadly. Some I work for, and while they are slowly changing, I would not say their own data centers (yes, read: data centers) are "little co-located hosting" companies. Usually they are entire departments, with entire budgets and multiple facilities, with many peoples jobs within that. So while for the developer, moving things to AWS is a no-brainer, a time-saver, and a money-saver to the company, the amount of politics, and change, is so large these behemoths of companies are the last to consider it. Security is a valid piece, but also a political move to keep the money from changing hands too rapidly.
princetontiger 10y ago
This is hilarious. 20 years late? Nothing to see here, move along. WhitneyLand is correct.
vitobeto 10y ago
On the landing page you may see a computer screen with PHP code, but they just offer JAVA and .NET SDK right now, fun fact!
- hihihduybd 10y ago
  There is nothing stopping you from coding in PHP or any other language. They only provide samples in Java and C# right now.
- Shanea93 10y ago
  To be honest, that code is pretty bad anyway. "If an arbitrary attribute table doesn't exist, ignore this row and process the next one", no exceptions thrown, no attempt to rectify the situation, no logging, no state change, just ignore it. I can't really think of a situation where you both don't care and don't want to know if your transaction completes. That aside, this actually looks like it might even contain a SQL injection vulnerability. I'm no Drupal 7 expert (which this code seems to be) but having looked in to the code being ran here, db_table_exists seems to call down to `$this->connection->queryRange("SELECT 1 FROM {" . $table . "}", 0, 1);` in `DatabaseSchema_mysql::tableExists`, which contains an unescaped PDO query. I feel like anyone running this code is going to have a very bad day and it makes me untrusting of the rest of the work they're putting out.
  - bpicolo 10y ago
    I LOVE going around to websites and seeing their stock images for code. It's usually insanely unrelated, e.g. hadoop vendors with some random HTML/CSS pictures.
- JackWebbHeller 10y ago
  It actually seems to be code to change/rename database fields within Drupal 7... https://gist.github.com/rangnekarsuhel/e0402c9f93c5cda66a02 https://gist.github.com/rangnekarsuhel/e0402c9f93c5cda66a02
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
niftich 10y ago
It's tempting to think this ship has already sailed and they're late to the party, but I'm actually more concerned. Recently, we saw MasterCard announcing APIs; ultimately the card issuers are the real gatekeepers of their own data and their own integrations, and as more of them move to gain the control back that they ceded with their lack of public developer engagement, the role of payment processors becomes less clear. Sure, for the near future, a payment processor can continue to abstract away from the actual card issuer; but as richer APIs surface, those may siphon away marketshare from payment processors.
- master5o1 10y ago
  Developers are still more likely to implement the one API that provides n payment methods than implement n APIs to get n payment methods. That is, a payment processor like Stripe that provides AMEX, MC, Bitcoin or what ever is often more valuable than by being able to reduce complexity in the integration of services.
  - rubyfan 10y ago
    Right, it's not a choice of picking MasterCard's one API vs. Stripe (as an example) It's Stripe vs. implementing 10ish card or payment APIs. The choice is easy and will continue to be for most consumer facing scenarios.
- throwanem 10y ago
  One quibble: MasterCard and Visa are associations, not issuers. (AmEx is sort of both - iPhone to Visa's and MasterCard's Android.) I don't know that processors have a lot to worry about here. It's been a few years since I was in the space, but from a dev perspective, there'd have to be some really compelling reasons to implement (and pay fees for!) an integration per card type, rather than one integration for all payment cards.
20years 10y ago
Less than 10% of our customers pay with Amex. Can someone shed some light on why a developer would implement this for Amex payments vs just using Stripe, Auth.net or another payment gateway that supports Amex? I am trying to understand the value here and how this will benefit the developer and/or consumer.
- matt4077 10y ago
  It's probably cheaper. If it saves you 1/2% it may be worth it if you're doing >$1mil. (Note that I have no idea how much cheaper it is because they don't seem to have prices anywhere. Which makes me irrationally angry and looking forward to their all-but-inevitable demise over the next decade).
  - cstejerean 10y ago
    I would bet it's more expensive than Stripe. AmEX is known for being much more expensive than Visa and MC, and I wouldn't be surprised if Stripe loses money on every AmEx transaction (but makes it up on other cards).
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      This would imply one might negotiate a better rate with stripe by promising to never send Amex their way.
    - SyneRyder 10y ago
      Stripe used to charge a higher fee for AmEx cards, until August of this year. (Or at least, they did in Australia.)
- SyneRyder 10y ago
  The Pay With Points feature could be interesting, allowing customers to buy products online using their Amex Membership Rewards points. I didn't see if it was possible to implement just that without also implementing the other payments processing.
brianbreslin 10y ago
So can someone explain to me why one would use amex over stripe or braintree? Or why would one use mastercard's API or Visa's? They all have similar APIs right?
- jly 10y ago
  The biggest reason would be price. I don't know the amex payment pricing or how it differs from stripe/braintree, but cutting out the middle man has got to be cheaper. I run a small business using stripe and cc processing fees are a big hit. The service and support is amazing and it's so easy to use, but it's not cheap. They charge the same for every card type when the card providers charge in-person merchants much different (and lower) rates.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    Are you doing card-not-present? That's going to be a fee hit over card-present regardless of processor. If you're doing card-present, look into traditional acquirers and also chip-and-PIN. You'll pay considerably more up front, but less over time due to the fee difference, and you'll also no longer need to sweat being on the wrong end of the EMV liability shift.
- titomc 10y ago
  AMEX is closed loop network. The advantage possibly would be huge troves of data about customer spending habits, if they expose those in future(obviously without PII)
locusm 10y ago
AMEX in Australia: Maybe 1 in 10 merchants even accept it, for that 1 you pay a much higher surcharge.
- ajdlinux 10y ago
  IDK, I've used Amex in Australia for >50% of my credit card spend. All major supermarkets, department stores, most petrol stations and fast food chains accept it. I assume outside of those categories it really depends where you are though - the cafe across the road from my office accepts Amex with no surcharge and no minimum, but I'm in CBR in the heart of public service territory, so...
  - locusm 10y ago
    I goto the supermarket once a week so yeah, thats the only time I use it. I've given up asking otherwise.
    - lostsock 10y ago
      Most merchants that also accept AMEX have a little sticker in their window. There are actually a lot more businesses that allow you to use an AMEX without a surcharge than there used to be: https://maps.americanexpress.com/aushopsmall#/ https://maps.americanexpress.com/aushopsmall#/
      - SyneRyder 10y ago
        If you get time to watch the cycle of logos on the Paypass terminal while you're waiting, it will usually display whether it accepts Amex or not (and also logos now for Apple Pay & Android Pay too).
programminggeek 10y ago
This is interesting, but if you need card present payments and EMV, something like CardFlight's SDK https://cardflight.com/sdk/ https://cardflight.com/sdk/ is going to be a better fit. Disclaimer: My friend works there and has told me all about it.
emodendroket 10y ago
Gotta try and make those lost Costco bucks somehow.
nodesocket 10y ago
I'll play devils advocate. If your Netflix and this direct Amex integration saves you 1/2 percent per transaction that makes a <strike>huge</strike> difference to your bottom line. Netflix current subscribers 83 million and average revenue per subscriber per month is $10.32. $83M * $10.32 = $857M total revenue per month. Assume 10% of transactions are Amex. $857M * .10 = $86M per month. Finally 1/2 percent of $86M is a savings $430,000 per month.
- nodesocket 10y ago
  UPDATE: I originally thought it was a savings of $430,000 a year, but it is actually a savings of $430,000 a month. ORIGINAL: I think I just talked myself out of my own argument. That $430,000 savings is basically the cost of one Netflix engineer. The technical debt to maintain separate Amex billing easily would exceed $430,000 a year.
  - mgkimsal 10y ago
    why does the "cost of an engineer" continue to keep going massively up whenever these comparisons are made? $430k? are netflix engineers that special? glassdoor shows sr engineers around $200k - i can't tell if they're including stock/bonus in that or not. Range start in $120k range. Yes, taxes, yes benefits, but... $430k?
    - ryan-c 10y ago
      Salary + health care + payroll taxes + equipment + space + other overhead, etc.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - muninn_ 10y ago
        As a general rule of thumb a full time employee costs a company twice their salary.
OJFord 10y ago
> passionate American Express developers who are adding new code regularly. "adding new code"
rubyfan 10y ago
"Data Intelligence" is an ATM locator. This is not my idea of Data Intelligence. Perhaps a better heading is called for there.
arenaninja 10y ago
Slightly off-topic, but what a strong week for PHP -- the code in the Mac image is PHP code
moduspwnens14 10y ago
Imagine this potential future with me. At first, it's just Amex. Then, to remain competitive, other major card vendors do something similar. Most of us (developers) still use something like Stripe for simplicity, but libraries start popping up that abstract away the vendor-specific APIs and make it easy to use them. Long term, though, as more and more payments are handled electronically and online, this opens the door for a more competitive credit card market. Now, to compete with Visa or Mastercard, all I need is to get my API into those popular libraries and merchants can accept my card just as easily as theirs--except I charge a lower rate. You'll start seeing cards that are virtual only--allowing them to cut fees below what companies handling physical cards can do. With the payment process being decentralized, now even requiring a card number is unnecessary. Users specify the ways they'd like to pay for things in their payment client (browser? phone?) and this is negotiated behind the scenes with the payment types the merchant will accept. Users and merchants can directly decide between more traditional payment means (centralized / fiat currency) and upcoming ones (decentralized / cryptocurrency). The limiting factor is no longer what the PoS (point of service) machine will accept, but what the popular payment processing libraries support (and the merchant has configured them to allow). I don't expect we'll see Visa or Mastercard do this, but this could be a key first step toward a more competitive payment processing market (which has had the same entrenched players for decades).
- joe-stanton 10y ago
  Visa/Mastercard may well be forced to try something like this in order to survive. Banks are opening up their own API's for P2P payments (at least within the EU due to legislation). This could completely negate the need for intermediate "payment networks" (except the following). However - I don't think you'll see a proliferation of new payment methods. The biggest problem here would be fraud mitigation, so it'd need to be a payment provider the merchant deems trustworthy enough. Interesting times ahead. Amex are just doing the bare minimum to keep up here.
VT_Drew 10y ago
This seems neat but not what I was expecting. I am writing a small django app to track my finances. This is just an app I am writing for myself to use personally. I would love to be able to get transactions directly from a credit card, I know it is possible there are other services (like mint.com) that can do it. Can anyone point me the right direction? If could get my Amex transactions as json or xml that would be great. As a personal project I wouldn't be willing to spend much money to get access to an API like what I am describing (if fees are associated with it).
reubano 10y ago
API Standard Practices Generally, our public APIs follow a standard set of best practices: - All APIs follow REST principles. - JSON is the standard payload. Some APIs may include additional formats such as XML and in such cases media type headers are used to specify your preference. - Due to the sensitive nature of most data that is exchanged with American Express, you will commonly find HTTP POST methods used where you may expect to find either GET or DELETE methods used. The primary purpose is to prevent sensitive search criteria from being used in the Query string, moving it instead to the Body. ---------------- So they claim to be RESTful yet not support GET or DELETE calls. Do they even realize what they are saying?

Amex for Developers

152 points by titomc 10y ago

kkirsche 10y ago

It's interesting for sure, but as a consumer rather than a business, is there a use case for this?

ralmeida 10y ago
Depending on what they mean by "Customized Experience", and what data does this allow access to, it may mean better integration with a number of consumer finance apps, such as Mint, YNAB, etc. Doesn't seem like it from the description in the website, though.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
elliottcarlson 10y ago
Checking out on Delta via my Delta AmEx allows me to simply login to my AmEx account (saved via a password manager) and checkout without entering my actual card info. The convenience factor there is definitely nice.
Fomite 10y ago
Pay with Points is an interesting idea to see rewards accessible more broadly.

OliverJones 10y ago

Hmm. For the typical card-not-present (online) use case, stripe.com and paypal do a pretty darn good job of processing AMEX payment cards, as well as the others. Tokenization is vital in this age of cybermiscreants. Ya don't want customer payment card data in your dbms. The stripe.com API offers tokenization, and it offers the ability to send and validate data like zip/postcode, cvv and street address to cut fraud. They have an api for chargeback disputes, too. (The business I serve doesn't use it, instead we use the forms on their web site. We have dozens of disputes per decade, not worth programming.) Squareup.com (Square) does a good job with card-present transactions. And these service providers offer predictable processing fees. I wonder what's special about the AMEX APIs? Maybe somebody from AMEX can explain? Some of us are always looking for better ways to serve customers and handle payments efficiently.

enra 10y ago
One benefit can be that you access / pay with Amex points, which I think Stripe doesn't offer. Also I've seen Amex offer login/auth verification, where you a service can verify you as the actual Amex user, and possibly trust you more that way.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- wil421 10y ago
  I booked some museum visits in Italy this past summer. On a few of the sites I'd be sent to AMEX and enter some verification codes before the payment would process. Never seen it in the US but it would be nice. I feel more comfortable going directly to AMEX first. Some website payment systems are shady feeling.
contingencies 10y ago
offers tokenization s/tokenization/lockin/ # devil's advocate
- wpietri 10y ago
  Not sure why this is downvoted, but it's a fair point. I know of a small business with a lot of subscriptions and this became a big issue for them when provider quality declined.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- tomschlick 10y ago
  From what I have seen you can easily contact support and they will export your customer's card number for import into another provider.
ecommerceguy 10y ago
>And these service providers offer the >highest< processing fees. FTFY The only people I've ever met that recommend Stripe are developers. The only people I'd recommend Square to are merchants whose avg ticket is less than $5 or are borderline hobbyists. The number of hardcore PP users has dropped significantly in the last 5 years, in my experience, to less than 10%.

WhitneyLand 10y ago

Wow, talk about too little too late. This kind of late to the party strategy is why startups will always be needed to lead innovation. The irony is the highest ranking person at AmEx who really understands this is probably a pretty smart guy who had to fight and lobby for years to rally enough support to make this happen. edit: Its worse than I thought. A quick search shows they brought in high level talent from Google, Amazon, etc. I'm willing to bet these guys pitched some cool ideas before leaving frustrated after their short tenures.

guruparan18 10y ago
And it appears they only accept XML. I am not sure if this is a considerable change with the trend to support JSON file format.
Zelphyr 10y ago
I've heard how Amex can be from a friend who has them as a client. They refuse to let her host their instance of her product on AWS because Amex's security team supposedly hasn't vetted AWS yet. This despite the kinds of customers Amazon already hosts on AWS (the CIA comes to mind). Not to mention that she has several other very large banks as clients that don't have a problem at all being hosted on AWS. Or that exactly zero of the data she deals with is in any way related to sensitive customer data because the product is used by Amex's marketing department. As an Amex customer I'm glad to know they have strict requirements but the fact is, they're shunning a massive cloud infrastructure service like AWS over a piddly little local co-locted hosting company.
- spotman 10y ago
  This is the story of many "enterprise" companies sadly. Some I work for, and while they are slowly changing, I would not say their own data centers (yes, read: data centers) are "little co-located hosting" companies. Usually they are entire departments, with entire budgets and multiple facilities, with many peoples jobs within that. So while for the developer, moving things to AWS is a no-brainer, a time-saver, and a money-saver to the company, the amount of politics, and change, is so large these behemoths of companies are the last to consider it. Security is a valid piece, but also a political move to keep the money from changing hands too rapidly.

princetontiger 10y ago

This is hilarious. 20 years late? Nothing to see here, move along. WhitneyLand is correct.

vitobeto 10y ago

On the landing page you may see a computer screen with PHP code, but they just offer JAVA and .NET SDK right now, fun fact!

hihihduybd 10y ago
There is nothing stopping you from coding in PHP or any other language. They only provide samples in Java and C# right now.
Shanea93 10y ago
To be honest, that code is pretty bad anyway. "If an arbitrary attribute table doesn't exist, ignore this row and process the next one", no exceptions thrown, no attempt to rectify the situation, no logging, no state change, just ignore it. I can't really think of a situation where you both don't care and don't want to know if your transaction completes. That aside, this actually looks like it might even contain a SQL injection vulnerability. I'm no Drupal 7 expert (which this code seems to be) but having looked in to the code being ran here, db_table_exists seems to call down to `$this->connection->queryRange("SELECT 1 FROM {" . $table . "}", 0, 1);` in `DatabaseSchema_mysql::tableExists`, which contains an unescaped PDO query. I feel like anyone running this code is going to have a very bad day and it makes me untrusting of the rest of the work they're putting out.
- bpicolo 10y ago
  I LOVE going around to websites and seeing their stock images for code. It's usually insanely unrelated, e.g. hadoop vendors with some random HTML/CSS pictures.
JackWebbHeller 10y ago
It actually seems to be code to change/rename database fields within Drupal 7... https://gist.github.com/rangnekarsuhel/e0402c9f93c5cda66a02 https://gist.github.com/rangnekarsuhel/e0402c9f93c5cda66a02

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

niftich 10y ago

It's tempting to think this ship has already sailed and they're late to the party, but I'm actually more concerned. Recently, we saw MasterCard announcing APIs; ultimately the card issuers are the real gatekeepers of their own data and their own integrations, and as more of them move to gain the control back that they ceded with their lack of public developer engagement, the role of payment processors becomes less clear. Sure, for the near future, a payment processor can continue to abstract away from the actual card issuer; but as richer APIs surface, those may siphon away marketshare from payment processors.

master5o1 10y ago
Developers are still more likely to implement the one API that provides n payment methods than implement n APIs to get n payment methods. That is, a payment processor like Stripe that provides AMEX, MC, Bitcoin or what ever is often more valuable than by being able to reduce complexity in the integration of services.
- rubyfan 10y ago
  Right, it's not a choice of picking MasterCard's one API vs. Stripe (as an example) It's Stripe vs. implementing 10ish card or payment APIs. The choice is easy and will continue to be for most consumer facing scenarios.
throwanem 10y ago
One quibble: MasterCard and Visa are associations, not issuers. (AmEx is sort of both - iPhone to Visa's and MasterCard's Android.) I don't know that processors have a lot to worry about here. It's been a few years since I was in the space, but from a dev perspective, there'd have to be some really compelling reasons to implement (and pay fees for!) an integration per card type, rather than one integration for all payment cards.

20years 10y ago

Less than 10% of our customers pay with Amex. Can someone shed some light on why a developer would implement this for Amex payments vs just using Stripe, Auth.net or another payment gateway that supports Amex? I am trying to understand the value here and how this will benefit the developer and/or consumer.

matt4077 10y ago
It's probably cheaper. If it saves you 1/2% it may be worth it if you're doing >$1mil. (Note that I have no idea how much cheaper it is because they don't seem to have prices anywhere. Which makes me irrationally angry and looking forward to their all-but-inevitable demise over the next decade).
- cstejerean 10y ago
  I would bet it's more expensive than Stripe. AmEX is known for being much more expensive than Visa and MC, and I wouldn't be surprised if Stripe loses money on every AmEx transaction (but makes it up on other cards).
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    This would imply one might negotiate a better rate with stripe by promising to never send Amex their way.
  - SyneRyder 10y ago
    Stripe used to charge a higher fee for AmEx cards, until August of this year. (Or at least, they did in Australia.)
SyneRyder 10y ago
The Pay With Points feature could be interesting, allowing customers to buy products online using their Amex Membership Rewards points. I didn't see if it was possible to implement just that without also implementing the other payments processing.

brianbreslin 10y ago

So can someone explain to me why one would use amex over stripe or braintree? Or why would one use mastercard's API or Visa's? They all have similar APIs right?

jly 10y ago
The biggest reason would be price. I don't know the amex payment pricing or how it differs from stripe/braintree, but cutting out the middle man has got to be cheaper. I run a small business using stripe and cc processing fees are a big hit. The service and support is amazing and it's so easy to use, but it's not cheap. They charge the same for every card type when the card providers charge in-person merchants much different (and lower) rates.
- throwanem 10y ago
  Are you doing card-not-present? That's going to be a fee hit over card-present regardless of processor. If you're doing card-present, look into traditional acquirers and also chip-and-PIN. You'll pay considerably more up front, but less over time due to the fee difference, and you'll also no longer need to sweat being on the wrong end of the EMV liability shift.
titomc 10y ago
AMEX is closed loop network. The advantage possibly would be huge troves of data about customer spending habits, if they expose those in future(obviously without PII)

locusm 10y ago

AMEX in Australia: Maybe 1 in 10 merchants even accept it, for that 1 you pay a much higher surcharge.

ajdlinux 10y ago
IDK, I've used Amex in Australia for >50% of my credit card spend. All major supermarkets, department stores, most petrol stations and fast food chains accept it. I assume outside of those categories it really depends where you are though - the cafe across the road from my office accepts Amex with no surcharge and no minimum, but I'm in CBR in the heart of public service territory, so...
- locusm 10y ago
  I goto the supermarket once a week so yeah, thats the only time I use it. I've given up asking otherwise.
  - lostsock 10y ago
    Most merchants that also accept AMEX have a little sticker in their window. There are actually a lot more businesses that allow you to use an AMEX without a surcharge than there used to be: https://maps.americanexpress.com/aushopsmall#/ https://maps.americanexpress.com/aushopsmall#/
    - SyneRyder 10y ago
      If you get time to watch the cycle of logos on the Paypass terminal while you're waiting, it will usually display whether it accepts Amex or not (and also logos now for Apple Pay & Android Pay too).

programminggeek 10y ago

This is interesting, but if you need card present payments and EMV, something like CardFlight's SDK https://cardflight.com/sdk/ https://cardflight.com/sdk/ is going to be a better fit. Disclaimer: My friend works there and has told me all about it.

emodendroket 10y ago

Gotta try and make those lost Costco bucks somehow.

nodesocket 10y ago

I'll play devils advocate. If your Netflix and this direct Amex integration saves you 1/2 percent per transaction that makes a <strike>huge</strike> difference to your bottom line. Netflix current subscribers 83 million and average revenue per subscriber per month is $10.32. $83M * $10.32 = $857M total revenue per month. Assume 10% of transactions are Amex. $857M * .10 = $86M per month. Finally 1/2 percent of $86M is a savings $430,000 per month.

nodesocket 10y ago
UPDATE: I originally thought it was a savings of $430,000 a year, but it is actually a savings of $430,000 a month. ORIGINAL: I think I just talked myself out of my own argument. That $430,000 savings is basically the cost of one Netflix engineer. The technical debt to maintain separate Amex billing easily would exceed $430,000 a year.
- mgkimsal 10y ago
  why does the "cost of an engineer" continue to keep going massively up whenever these comparisons are made? $430k? are netflix engineers that special? glassdoor shows sr engineers around $200k - i can't tell if they're including stock/bonus in that or not. Range start in $120k range. Yes, taxes, yes benefits, but... $430k?
  - ryan-c 10y ago
    Salary + health care + payroll taxes + equipment + space + other overhead, etc.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - muninn_ 10y ago
      As a general rule of thumb a full time employee costs a company twice their salary.

OJFord 10y ago

> passionate American Express developers who are adding new code regularly. "adding new code"

rubyfan 10y ago

"Data Intelligence" is an ATM locator. This is not my idea of Data Intelligence. Perhaps a better heading is called for there.

arenaninja 10y ago

Slightly off-topic, but what a strong week for PHP -- the code in the Mac image is PHP code

moduspwnens14 10y ago

Imagine this potential future with me. At first, it's just Amex. Then, to remain competitive, other major card vendors do something similar. Most of us (developers) still use something like Stripe for simplicity, but libraries start popping up that abstract away the vendor-specific APIs and make it easy to use them. Long term, though, as more and more payments are handled electronically and online, this opens the door for a more competitive credit card market. Now, to compete with Visa or Mastercard, all I need is to get my API into those popular libraries and merchants can accept my card just as easily as theirs--except I charge a lower rate. You'll start seeing cards that are virtual only--allowing them to cut fees below what companies handling physical cards can do. With the payment process being decentralized, now even requiring a card number is unnecessary. Users specify the ways they'd like to pay for things in their payment client (browser? phone?) and this is negotiated behind the scenes with the payment types the merchant will accept. Users and merchants can directly decide between more traditional payment means (centralized / fiat currency) and upcoming ones (decentralized / cryptocurrency). The limiting factor is no longer what the PoS (point of service) machine will accept, but what the popular payment processing libraries support (and the merchant has configured them to allow). I don't expect we'll see Visa or Mastercard do this, but this could be a key first step toward a more competitive payment processing market (which has had the same entrenched players for decades).

joe-stanton 10y ago
Visa/Mastercard may well be forced to try something like this in order to survive. Banks are opening up their own API's for P2P payments (at least within the EU due to legislation). This could completely negate the need for intermediate "payment networks" (except the following). However - I don't think you'll see a proliferation of new payment methods. The biggest problem here would be fraud mitigation, so it'd need to be a payment provider the merchant deems trustworthy enough. Interesting times ahead. Amex are just doing the bare minimum to keep up here.

VT_Drew 10y ago

This seems neat but not what I was expecting. I am writing a small django app to track my finances. This is just an app I am writing for myself to use personally. I would love to be able to get transactions directly from a credit card, I know it is possible there are other services (like mint.com) that can do it. Can anyone point me the right direction? If could get my Amex transactions as json or xml that would be great. As a personal project I wouldn't be willing to spend much money to get access to an API like what I am describing (if fees are associated with it).

reubano 10y ago

API Standard Practices Generally, our public APIs follow a standard set of best practices: - All APIs follow REST principles. - JSON is the standard payload. Some APIs may include additional formats such as XML and in such cases media type headers are used to specify your preference. - Due to the sensitive nature of most data that is exchanged with American Express, you will commonly find HTTP POST methods used where you may expect to find either GET or DELETE methods used. The primary purpose is to prevent sensitive search criteria from being used in the Query string, moving it instead to the Body. ---------------- So they claim to be RESTful yet not support GET or DELETE calls. Do they even realize what they are saying?