Published December 14th, 2006
in banking and uncategorized.
In Ireland we have all heard of American Express, a gigantic US corporate that has a Brand of charge/credit cards. However if you were to step downtown and perform a wallet inspection of a sample of the public you would find to your amazement that the corporate logos festooning the cards therein were those of Visa and MasterCard only.
American Express is, to put it simply the Pepsi of the credit card world, viz a familiar name but always a second choice. Lets examine why. Who is responsible?
The Banks - In Ireland the card is only issued by Bank of Ireland under licence from American Express Limited, and in their wisdom BOI have elected to promote the card as it it were a contractual obligation.The Merchants? - It seems that merchants depise AMEX also. This is because the acceptance fee is approx 2.25% of a transaction value versus the comparatively resonable 1.75% of Visa and MasterCard and nominal cents of Laser. Further they take much longer to pay the merchant. While Visa and MasterCard typically pay daily by direct deposit to the merchants bank account American Express take about two weeks. So many merchants have
dropped AMEX, and even in the spiritual home of the card merchants are
dropping it.
The public? - The only party who likes AMEX then is the customer who can flash the card to his friends, and enjoy the 1% MoneyBack, but frankly in these days of Gold Cards for all from MBNA the flash value of an AMEX is only apparent to a Patrick Bateman impersonator. But celtic tiger has plenty of those, the archetypal BMW 3 series driving, suit wearing, young male with a large disporable income, consigned to the fact that he will never be able to afford a house, and thus spends his money on appearing happy, would surely love the have an American Express card? Yes he would but because the Bank doesn’t pomote it he doesn’t know it exists. Imagine the amount of money AMEX have lost in Ireland due to the poor pomotion of its card by the Bank, if MBNA had the licence there would be many more cards in circulation here.
To conclude I believe AMEX should lower their merchant fees to 1.9% and increase payment speed, drop BOI and switch to another Bank.
Agreed, AMEX is getting the Diners Club treatment in Eire
AMEX is the only “major” card that we don’t accept simply because there were too many hoops to jump through and not enough demand
Hi Mr Michele, I can understand the lack of demand, but what sort of hoops were there to actually signup? I though it was easy for a merchant to accept AMEX, and the only problem was their slow payment cycle
I can’t remember the exact details, but I know it wasn’t worth it
I think the issue with Amex is the channels sales.
Local banks in Singapore just love Visa partnerships because Visa doesn’t directly compete with them yet…
Amex is learning though…
Effectively there’s no way to get the Blue Amex. I tried several barnches of BOI, they haven’t seen the application form for at least a year. So there’s no way to apply for the card @ BOI.
The reason I’d like to get the card is the 1% money back option. I’m using my credit card quite a lot and I’d get a good money back at the end of the year.
So, if anybody knows how to get one, please let me know …
Peter, you can actually get the Applicaiton From BOI Card Services, they are contactable by phone (1890), email (boics@boimail.com) I think, or post.
Can you apply for an AMEX without having an account chez BOI?
Isn’t it really annoying when they have the Amex sticker on the door, but they still don’t accept Amex at the counter? See http://serialcomplainer.com for more details.