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American Express suspends its relationship with Curve Card, just 36 hours after launch

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Here’s something I didn’t see coming.  After launching with much fanfare on Monday, American Express suspended its relationship with Curve Card on Tuesday night.

This came just 36 hours after Amex functionality was launched to the public.  Amex cards had, however, been activated for a test group of Curve Card users for a few months before this.

(EDIT:  Curve has now published a lengthy blog post explaining how the split with American Express occurred.  I copied it into a separate article here.)

If you look on the Curve website, none of the cards are showing the option to link to American Express.  This means that the company is effectively back to the position it was in before Monday.

American Express sent me a statement last night which said:

“American Express participated in a limited Curve beta test where we enabled a small number of Card Members to load funds onto an e-wallet using their Amex Card in the Curve app. Following this beta test we informed Curve that we would not participate in the further roll out of the Curve e-wallet.”

I spoke with Curve’s CEO early this morning and, whilst for legal reasons I don’t want to repeat what he said, he confirmed the position with American Express.

Curve has sent the following to users:

“We are extremely sorry that the top-up functionality for your Amex wallet is currently disabled.

Like thousands of other UK merchants, Curve has a valid merchant agreement to accept Amex payments into its e-wallet. However, on Tuesday evening, Amex decided to terminate this agreement and block all Amex transactions to Curve with immediate effect.

Amex has given no good or fair reason for their decision and we feel it is entirely disproportionate and discriminatory to Curve and all our (joint) customers. UK payment regulations clearly state that Curve should be allowed to access the Amex payment network on a level-playing field with every other fee-paying and legitimate merchant.

Rest assured that you can still spend the funds that you have already topped up to your existing Amex Wallets. If you have contacted us for support, we apologise for the delay in response and will endeavour to do so as soon as possible. We will update you as soon as we have any further information.

With our customers interests in mind, and our mission to deliver to you a truly innovative product, Curve intends to fight Amex’s decision with its full might. We believe financial freedom is the future and we are prepared to fight for yours.”

If there is any more news during the day I will drop it into this article.

TechCrunch has decent take on the subject here if you want to read more.  It is worth noting that the Amex statement given to TechCrunch – 18 hours after my statement – is a bit different:

“We participated in a limited Curve beta test in which we explored enabling Card Members to load funds onto an e-wallet using their Amex Card in the Curve app. A very small number of Amex Card Members participated in the test. Based on the results, we communicated to Curve that we would not participate in the further roll out of Curve because of concerns related to the overall American Express Card Member experience. Subsequently we terminated our contract with them.”

Curve will pay you £10 for trying it out if you use our link.

PS.  In a separate (or perhaps not entirely separate) note, payment company Billhop – we covered Billhop here – sent the following email to users yesterday:

“Due to guidelines from American Express you will no longer be able to make payments to private accounts with an American Express card regardless if the purpose of the payment is related to a business transaction. This change will come into effect on the 7th of February 2019.

You will still be able to use a MasterCard and/or VISA card for transactions to private accounts relating to business transactions including, but not limited to, payroll, housekeeping, rent, nanny services, etc.

Please note that peer-to-peer remittance is still not allowed regardless of card.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.”

Note that this only covers payments to sole traders.  You can continue to use Amex via Billhop to pay a company, local authority, HMRC etc.

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Comments (791)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Myer says:
    30 Jan30 January 15:01

    I guess some of us have integrity and others do not and or possibly unable to utilise their time in a more productive manner

    • SimonW says:
      30 Jan30 January 15:06

      Like writing waffle on internet chat rooms about people they have never met?? Mr Productive Myer

    • callum says:
      30 Jan30 January 15:10

      You’re hilarious! Making slanderous accusations to strangers on the internet shows a complete lack of integrity in and of itself.

      You have me pegged with regards to time though – I’m here right now out of procrastination, seems we both have issues in that area.

    • will says:
      30 Jan30 January 15:11

      Pretty outrageous to suggest a human lacks integrity because they took out 2 american express cards within a year of each other but such is the fantastic freedom of the country we live in you are of course free to express than opinion.

      • Mr Miyagi says:
        30 Jan30 January 15:29

        It’s everyone for themselves in this game. I know someone who around 8 years years ago single-handedly got the huge 20x bonus avios offer by Lloyds shutdown. He earned 23.5 million Avios through one transaction on a piece of art, although he did pay the AMEX merchant fees for the auction house. They shut it down immediately after that, and immediately contacted him to try and wangle their way out of it, without success. Good for him. If you’re too slow, tough.

        • Peter says:
          30 Jan30 January 15:59

          How much was the piece of art??????

        • Mark says:
          30 Jan30 January 16:03

          I thought I did well with my 500,000. Would have been more had our wedding venue (river cafe in NY) taken amex. I couldn’t believe it! a company in the US not taking AMEX! I nearly booked somewhere else.

        • Mark says:
          30 Jan30 January 16:14

          Now, had he then sold the art the following week for the same amount as he bought it, that would be cunning.

        • Mr Miyagi says:
          30 Jan30 January 16:14

          It was just over 1 million GBP. I remember BA contacting him around that time and saying it was the highest Avios balance in the world. He still has 14 million left from it, mostly spent on Cathay 😛

        • New Card says:
          30 Jan30 January 16:55

          How did he have a £1 million credit limit on his card?

        • Mr Miyagi says:
          30 Jan30 January 17:17

          He often made large purchases so the provider allowed him to add big sums before a purchase. He did it in several stages adding increasingly large amounts. albeit not with the mileage offer in mind as far as I’m aware. He was the head of a major corporation so I don’t know if that had any influence or whether allowing that was standard practice or not.

        • Mr Dee says:
          30 Jan30 January 17:20

          A lloyds card with that promo on and a £1m limit……

        • Mr Dee says:
          30 Jan30 January 17:22

          fair enough if he could get that sort of limit though

        • Alex Sm says:
          2 Feb2 February 15:39

          what is 20x promo???

    • Blue Mountains says:
      30 Jan30 January 15:20

      Ha! You did a funny! Talking about people not having integrity because they take advantage of legit offers/deals, when it’s the financial institutions that have brought this country (and many others) to its knees with their irresponsible and reckless behaviour…

    • Pangolin says:
      30 Jan30 January 16:24

      I started a business selling ten pound notes for a fiver.

      I have to say I’m disgusted with all those scammers who came along and took my money!

    • Mr Dee says:
      30 Jan30 January 17:23

      Yes how much does internet trolling pay these days….

  • Peter says:
    30 Jan30 January 15:46

    So is there ANY way to pay HMRC with an Amex??

    • Rob Walker says:
      30 Jan30 January 15:47

      Billhop

      • Peter says:
        30 Jan30 January 15:58

        Hmm ok, but 3% fee 🙁

        • Anna says:
          30 Jan30 January 16:10

          I believe it’s negotiable in some instances.

        • Anna says:
          30 Jan30 January 16:18

          You have to decide if it’s worth it for you. I paid for some building work via Billhop last year. I’d already negotiated a decent discount with the builder, and paying via Billhop got my a BAPP sign up bonus and one third of the way to a companion voucher. The companion voucher is taking us to NYC in F in May when cash prices are £6k pp. I think that was worth the fee; I’m not remotely bothered about whether I would have paid that much for the flight as I don’t factor that in.

        • Polly says:
          30 Jan30 January 16:26

          Y4s, they can take it down to 2% if you call them, saying you intend to make a lot of payments but think the fee is harsh!

        • Andrew L says:
          30 Jan30 January 16:51

          Amex are stopping personal payments to Billhop too from February.

        • Anna says:
          30 Jan30 January 17:08

          Mentioned a few times, but you can pay anyone with a registered business, even if there’s only 1 member of staff, like my cleaner.

  • Peter says:
    30 Jan30 January 16:01

    In my view it’s mainly due to FX transactions. While amex wouldn’t care about normal transactions (they still earn their interchange), curve allowed to save on FX on amex. This was too expensive, and they decided to drop out

  • Dave says:
    30 Jan30 January 16:12

    Wow. Squeaked it: paid 2k on Amex/Curve yesterday, and loaded another £800 via Amex which I paid to HMRC today. Must have missed Amex turning off the tap by minutes.

    Possibly I’m not the only one, maybe the impending self assessment deadline and subsequent uptake was part of the problem?

    • shd says:
      30 Jan30 January 16:20

      >> maybe the impending self assessment deadline and subsequent uptake was part of the problem

      If any business model is based on hoping your customers don’t use your product “too much”, there might be an underlying issue….

  • Azlozi says:
    30 Jan30 January 16:25

    I’m wondering – Now this ‘workaround’ is dead 36 hours after launching, as an alternative could you do something similar using Monzo as an interim card to pay for things with AMEX if the business doesn’t accept AMEX. There is a ‘Split the Bill’ function on transactions after you pay for something with your Monzo card.

    For example i’m thinking doing the weekly household shop in Lidl, who don’t accept AMEX, my wife could use her Monzo Card and split the bill so she pays 1% and i pay 99%. When i receive the payment link from her and i pay using my AMEX card would this count as a ‘Payment’ similar to what Curve were planning to do or as a cash withdrawal with associated interest charges?

    • Polly says:
      30 Jan30 January 16:29

      You know, that’s rather smart. That’s a new one on me. Never even heard about it….you will have now started a rampage towards Monzo, lots of new card applications today.. ha ha …blame us all on hfp for another new trend to replace amex/curve…

    • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
      30 Jan30 January 16:33

      I don’t think Monzo.me accepts Amex

    • Mr Dee says:
      30 Jan30 January 17:26

      haha why would Monzo take Amex, have you actually done any research or just made this up?

    • Alan says:
      30 Jan30 January 22:42

      Ermm but Monzo don’t take Amex?

    • Big Dave says:
      31 Jan31 January 08:17

      Does monzo me accept paypal ?

      then we could be onto something (paypal itself has a part payment option but I’ve never used it)

  • Andrew L says:
    30 Jan30 January 16:47

    You can’t fund any current account directly with a credit card…..Monzo, Starling etc…..only debit cards.

  • Sam says:
    30 Jan30 January 16:54

    I’m just glad that I don’t need to spend my evening reading Rob’s Part 2 article from yesterday (with a view to seeing how I could have paid my council tax bill using Curve). I have a spare evening this evening. Thanks Curve.

  • Myer says:
    30 Jan30 January 17:50

    Anna, I think you meant to say libellous, slander is a false spoken statement, whereas libel is an untrue defamatory statement that is made in writing. It is important to get your facts straight.

    • Anna says:
      30 Jan30 January 18:00

      Granted, however libel carries more weight in a litigation scenario; I see no possibility of a libel case materialising from your post as you weren’t directing your comments at a named individual. I was therefore reluctant to accuse you of libel.

      • Boreas says:
        31 Jan31 January 00:37

        Thank you, Anna — whose facts are, of course, naturally perfectly correct.

        Myer, please stop insulting everyone on this board. It is above all else just so boring.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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