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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 (788)

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

  • Steve says:
    30 Jan30 January 07:11

    Will be glad to see curve go to be honest after they froze my card whilst on holiday 2 years ago, I haven’t been near them since.

    How can they claim to be a ‘single card for your wallet’ but left me without a functioning card because they deemed it personal use and not business.

  • Johnny5a says:
    30 Jan30 January 07:12

    I hope Curve survives, I use it to pay off my VAT, Corporation Tax, NI and Self Assessment bills!
    i’m happy with its services and the times I’ve contacted CS.

    • Leo says:
      30 Jan30 January 07:21

      Ditto. I can live without linking an Amex card.

      • Thomas Howard says:
        30 Jan30 January 07:47

        Would you pay £50 a year for the privilege and would that be enough to keep curve going? Lots of people seem unimpressed with £120 a year for what we already had, pointless insurance and a limited allowance of Amex which we now know isn’t going to be on offer. Is there a fourth attempt at an old Curve Black product with a recurring payment?

        • Shoestring says:
          30 Jan30 January 08:07

          Even Uber users get 0.375% with Tesco debit card @HMRC etc

          1 CC point = 3p

          Earning 1 CC point/ £8

          3p/ £8 = 0.375%

          Avios users get 0.3%

        • Johnny5a says:
          30 Jan30 January 09:11

          Yes I would pay £50, if the max spend limit was lifted. I’ve maxed out on £50k limit. I’m now using my wife’s curve card.

    • Mr Dee says:
      30 Jan30 January 10:00

      Yes me too, but getting no limit increases because the spend isn’t varied enough because I pay a large amount to HMRC is a bit mean and requires me to do unnecessary spend elsewhere using my limit up to hopefully get an increase is a waste of time. If they tell me what I need to be varied then I would do it otherwise if they want natural spend patterns remove the limits.

      • Thomas Howard says:
        30 Jan30 January 10:41

        The problem being when £50k limit is below what you expect to spend over the year you don’t put through the smaller optional transactions (where the retailer accepts the underlying credit card) so you’re account to Curve will be prone to appearing like its being “misused”.

        If they survive this they need to look at smart ways of taking the strain off their CS team, you shouldn’t need to request an increased limit – a simple formula/algorithm should be able to work out if your balance of MCC codes is normal and increase it automatically.

  • Michael_S says:
    30 Jan30 January 07:15

    What are the chances this is overturned in court? Any legal fellows out there or Rob? Just looking at following statement by Curve which makes sense, although I’m by no means an expert

    “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.”

    • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
      30 Jan30 January 07:28

      If any PSD experts do chime in, would also be interested to hear an analysis of how Curve could justify the 0.65% fee on the interchange-capped Amex cards.

      • Shoestring says:
        30 Jan30 January 07:38

        Because it wasn’t an interchange fee

        • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
          30 Jan30 January 08:21

          I was referring to 6A of Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) Regulations 2012, where a Payee (generally) can’t impose a surcharge on a Payer for a particular method of payment.

      • John says:
        30 Jan30 January 08:00

        We don’t know how much Amex was charging Curve do we? All we know is that Curve chose this figure, hopefully on the basis of a sound business plan.

      • Mr Dee says:
        30 Jan30 January 10:01

        Agree

  • GunnyHighway says:
    30 Jan30 January 07:17

    What’s your assessment of the situation Gunny?

  • Nick G says:
    30 Jan30 January 07:22

    Jeez glad I didn’t bother signing up even though it sounded faffy!

  • Myer says:
    30 Jan30 January 07:28

    I have found my Curve Black ad my wife’s Blue to be excellent products in all respects. When I have had cause to email CS I have always found the service to be first class.
    As for Amex the Top Up scheme really never appealed to me, I would only have added Amex if I could have added it in the same manner as MC & Visa.
    I do hope that Curve continues and prospers.

    • TheSkintTraveller says:
      30 Jan30 January 07:43

      I feel sorry for all The people who took out the new subscription card a few days ago to now wait for a refund as its purely useless now without amex top ups.
      Pretty P**s Poor from both sides IMO, was it the sheer number of people topping up thousands that caused the problem or simply Curve didn’t have a binding at,element in place, each way it hasn’t worked out well for all parties involved.

    • DQ says:
      30 Jan30 January 08:44

      I agree with that. I’ve found CS to be very responsive and helpful. I can only assume that the negative comments refer to experience in its earlier days.

    • Alex W says:
      30 Jan30 January 08:48

      +1. My view is if you can’t make £10k spend in a year on Amex then don’t take out a BAPP.

    • Mr Dee says:
      30 Jan30 January 10:01

      How long did support take to reply?

  • Waribai says:
    30 Jan30 January 07:38

    “I spoke with Curve’s CEO early this morning ” Wow, do you actually sleep Rob? 🙂

  • Peter says:
    30 Jan30 January 07:39

    If Curve treats their partners (Amex) the way they treat their customers then this mess is not a surprise.

    • Alan says:
      30 Jan30 January 08:11

      Agreed

      • Mr Dee says:
        30 Jan30 January 09:38

        double agree, their support is worse than the first time they got blocked.

        How can they launch a payment card where people need to make transactions but provide no reachable support in case of urgent issues?

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