Dive Brief:

• Adding another product to its line-up for small businesses, American Express has launched Amex Business Link, a business-to-business payments system, according to a Thursday press release.
• With the service, small and medium-sized businesses can use Amex’s software interface for resource planning and customer relationship management, plus reporting and reconciliation functions, the company said.
• The New York card network company, the third-largest in the U.S., said more than 500 business clients are using the service in five countries. Those customers were added to the system on a rolling basis over the past year as the company was building and testing the system, a spokesperson for the company said.

Dive Insight:

American Express has spent the past couple of years enhancing its small business offerings. Following its acquisition of the lending tech company Kabbage, Amex introduced a no-fee business checking account offering a 1.1% APY interest rate on balances of up to $100,000. In August, the company unveiled a digital payment tool to facilitate domestic and international business-to-business transactions.

“As B2B payments rapidly digitized, we saw an opportunity to customize a solution for our network participants,” Mohammed Badi, president of global network services at American Express, said in the statement. “Amex Business Link modernizes how businesses buy and sell from one another with the flexibility to choose in real-time how they want to pay or be paid.” 

American Express has released new products as small businesses recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, and now grapple with inflation. In response to an American Express and Kabbage small business survey released in September, 37% of respondents said they’re raising their prices to combat rising inflation, 22% are renegotiating with their suppliers and 22% are cutting back on their less-profitable products and services. 

In addition to Amex, other payments giants have introduced more small business products this year. In February, Mastercard teamed up with Flowcast and Highnote to offer a small business credit card for business owners who can’t access credit and capital elsewhere.

Also, PayPal partnered with Mastercard, Concerto Card Company and WebBank to provide small business credit cards that include a virtual card, 2% cashback, free employee cards and other perks.