American Express to Offer One-Use Credit Card Numbers

N E W  Y O R K, Sept. 8 -- American Express willoffer disposable credit card numbers for safer online shopping.

The initiative, called Private Payments, will be offered freenext month to American Express customers and small businesscardholders in the United States.

The program is part of a new series of products the NewYork-based company will be launching to address privacy andsecurity issues that have discouraged many people from onlineshopping.

Private Payments allows customers to buy online withouttransmitting actual card numbers over the Internet. For each onlinepurchase, the customer obtains a random number from an AmericanExpress Web site that expires after the transaction.

Fear of Fraud

“Consumers have a real fear of having their credit cardstolen,” said Alfred F. Kelly Jr., group president of U.S.consumer and small business services at American Express. “Thisfear is the biggest obstacle for a real boom in e-commerce.”

Kelly said a slew of studies have found that 60 to 70 percent ofconsumers fear credit card fraud stemming from online use.

American Express also announced that it would work with digitalprivacy company Privada Inc. on a second product that will letconsumers choose how much information to reveal when browsing theWeb.

Kelly declined to offer more details, but said that the servicewould be available at year’s end.

“The whole experience of browsing is very different frombrowsing in the store,” he said. “With e-commerce, people knowwho you are. It’s tied to the experience.”

American Express has made several moves to address privacy andsecurity, including its offering of its Blue card. The card,introduced a year ago, is embedded with a chip that allowsconsumers to transfer credit card information directly to onlinemerchants via a card-reading device that is attached to PCs.

A Simple, Broad Appeal

Kelly emphasized that the company’s Private Payments programreaches out to a much broader audience than its Blue card, whichcaters to a “tech savvy” customer.