Peer to Peer payments (P2P) are electronic money transfers made from one person through an intermediary application. In the past Amex had taken a passive approach where customers can only use their credit cards for p2p payments on existing platforms like PayPal, Venmo, and CashApp.
Mobile P2P is growing rapidly, in 2020 P2P payments grew 37% in the US. By the end of 2022, there will be an estimated $650 billion in payment volume across 95 million users. Network effects are a key aspect of P2P and thus the space is highly concentrated to key players like PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, and CashApp. In 2020 Venmo facilitated $159B in Payment Volume (59% Y/Y growth) across 50m US users. Zelle, which is owned by the major banks, is the other dominant P2P player and facilitated $307B in payment volume in 2020 (58% Y/Y growth). Source, Source, [Source](https://www.zellepay.com/press-releases/zeller-closes-2020-record-307-billion-sent-12-billion-transactions#:~:text=Zelle® Closes 2020 with Record %24307 Billion Sent on 1.2 Billion Transactions,-Year-over-year&text=Early Warning Services%2C LLC%2C the,-over-year%2C respectively.)
P2P aligns with Amex's overall ambitions; it is core to our existing customers and adjacent to the current product offerings. While P2P has become table stakes for banks today Amex Digital Labs recognized we had an opportunity to provide a differentiated P2P experience.
<aside> 💡 “How might we take the awkward and uncomfortable i-owe-yous or i-owe-whos out of settling up with friends and family and make it simple and secure to get paid back?”
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A job-to-be-done we considered is...
<aside> 🍽️ Our Card Member dines with a group of friends and when the bill comes he needs an easy way to divvy it up and track as the group pays her back in real time
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Many P2P payments are rooted in a card transaction (restaurant bill, booking travel, buying concert tickets). Amex is positioned to consolidate the P2P end-to-end journey by owning it at the first step right when a credit card is used.
<aside> <img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/54b1a72b-4c57-403a-bca0-446240549537/send2.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/54b1a72b-4c57-403a-bca0-446240549537/send2.png" width="40px" /> Send Enable users to send money using funds from their Amex credit card. It was clear that we had to make it fee-free (both from Amex or third parties) and that the money has to be received in real-time.
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<aside> <img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/ace16d00-d1a2-4cfd-bc90-f0b59f06dd2f/unnamed.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/ace16d00-d1a2-4cfd-bc90-f0b59f06dd2f/unnamed.png" width="40px" />
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