American Express To Buy Revolution Money For $300M

MARK JEWELL

BOSTON (AP) — American Express Co. is buying Revolution Money for about $300 million to keep up with trends in electronic payments, where new security features and online transaction options are shaking up traditional models.

Wednesday's deal pairs American Express, a credit card provider tracing its roots to 1850, with a four-year-old startup.

Revolution Money offers payments authorized at checkout counters with a PIN number, with about 1 million merchants participating in the service. To reduce potential for identity theft, Revolution Cards have no name, signature or account number.

St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Revolution also offers MoneyExchange, a person-to-person service to send and receive money among friends and family, and among people using social and instant messaging networks.

"Acquiring Revolution Money is one step in expanding our reach in emerging payments, and one of the many we expect to take, but an important one," American Express Chairman and CEO Kenneth Chenault said in a conference call.

Revolution Money founder Jason Hogg said the acquisition by New York-based American Express will allow his company "to scale our technology and business years faster than we ever could on our own."