When American Express added Touch ID to the updated Amex Mobile app it released this week, it quietly slipped in a little something extra: Touch ID is now supported for Amex commercial cards as well as personal accounts.
That makes Amex “the most noteworthy commercial payments venture in the world to embrace the security feature,” according to Bank Innovation.
In part that’s because American Express is arguably the leading commercial payment-card company in the world, with more than 107 million cards in circulation, more than half of which are commercial cards, the newsletter estimates.
At least as important is the fact that, while the Amex Mobile app is primarily for customers to access online information about their accounts, Touch ID is tightly tied to the iPhone’s tokenization system, a central part of Apple Pay. That’s not just a hint that Amex is leaning in the same direction — Amex said in November that tokenization will be made available for its cards at the beginning of 2015 — but a solid first step along the way.
“Commercial bankers, you are now free to add Touch ID features to your apps, too,” the newsletter added.
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