American Express

Intro

Started as an express mail company as early as 1850, American Express introduced its Traveler’s Checks already in 1891 with the aim to help Americans travelling around Europe. To further expand company’s presence in the financial industry, supported by various bank acquisitions, Amex introduced its first charge card in 1958. Almost 30 years later American Express introduced its first credit card product that did not have to be paid in full at the end of the month. To broaden card acceptance Amex dropped its focus on exclusivity, as a result at the end of 2017 the company had 112.8 million cards in place.

Amex SafeKey

Amex SafeKey leverages 3-D Secure to detect and reduce online fraud by adding an extra layer of security when consumers shop online.

Optimized for Desktop Tablet Mobile

Overview

Payment group:

Cards (debit & credit)

Payment product id:

Key benefits

Real time authorisation
Secure payments
Fast settlement cycle
International acceptance

Countries & currencies

Supported countries

Albania
Algeria
American Samoa
Andorra
Angola
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Benin
Bolivia
Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius
Bouvet Island
Brazil
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Canada
China
Christmas Island
Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Cook Islands
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Ecuador
Egypt
Estonia
Faroe Islands
Fiji
Finland
France
French Guiana
French Southern Territories
Germany
Greece
Greenland
Guadeloupe
Guam
Guernsey
Heard Island and McDonald Islands
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Isle of Man
Israel
Italy
Japan
Jersey
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kiribati
Kuwait
Latvia
Lebanon
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macao
Malaysia
Mali
Malta
Marshall Islands
Martinique
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mayotte
Mexico
Micronesia
Moldova
Monaco
Mongolia
Montenegro
Morocco
Namibia
Nauru
Nepal
Netherlands Antilles
Netherlands
New Zealand
Niger
Niue
Norfolk Island
Northern Mariana Islands
Norway
Oman
Palau
Papua New Guinea
Pitcairn
Poland
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Qatar
Réunion
Romania
Russia
Saint Martin
Saint Pierre and Miquelon
San Marino
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Sint Maarten
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
South Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sudan
Svalbard and Jan Mayen
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Tanzania
Togo
Tokelau
Tunisia
Turkey
Turks and Caicos Islands
Tuvalu
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States Minor Outlying Islands
United States
Vanuatu
Vatican City
Virgin Islands (British)
Virgin Islands (U.S.)
Western Sahara

Supported currencies

Albanian lek (ALL)
Algerian dinar (DZD)
Australian dollar (AUD)
Boliviano (BOB)
Bulgarian lev (BGN)
Canadian dollar (CAD)
CFA franc BCEAO (XOF)
Chinese yuan (CNY)
Croatian kuna (HRK)
Czech koruna (CZK)
Danish krone (DKK)
Egyptian pound (EGP)
Euro (EUR)
Fiji dollar (FJD)
Hong Kong dollar (HKD)
Hungarian forint (HUF)
Israeli new shekel (ILS)
Japanese yen (JPY)
Jordanian dinar (JOD)
Kazakhstani tenge (KZT)
Kenyan shilling (KES)
Kuwaiti dinar (KWD)
Lebanese pound (LBP)
Macanese pataca (MOP)
Malaysian ringgit (MYR)
Mauritanian ouguiya (MRO)
Mauritian rupee (MUR)
Mexican peso (MXN)
Moldovan leu (MDL)
Mongolian tugrik (MNT)
Moroccan dirham (MAD)
Nepalese rupee (NPR)
Netherlands Antillean guilder (ANG)
New Taiwan dollar (TWD)
New Zealand dollar (NZD)
Norwegian krone (NOK)
Omani rial (OMR)
Papua New Guinean kina (PGK)
Polish zloty (PLN)
Pound sterling (GBP)
Qatari riyal (QAR)
Romanian new leu (RON)
Russian ruble (RUB)
Saudi riyal (SAR)
Seychelles rupee (SCR)
Singapore dollar (SGD)
South Korean won (KRW)
Sri Lankan rupee (LKR)
Swedish krona/kronor (SEK)
Swiss franc (CHF)
Tanzanian shilling (TZS)
Tunisian dinar (TND)
Turkish lira (TRY)
Ukrainian hryvnia (UAH)
United Arab Emirates dirham (AED)
United States dollar (USD)
Vanuatu vatu (VUV)

Integration

We offer this payment methods for the following integration modes. Learn in our dedicated guides about their individual differences:

Find a high level overview in the "Process flows" chapter.

Depending on the integration mode, differences apply:

Hosted Checkout Page
Hosted Tokenization Page
Server-to-server/Mobile/Client Integration

Hosted Checkout Page

Add the following properties to a standard CreateHostedCheckout request:


{
	"HostedCheckoutSpecificInput": {
		"ReturnUrl": "https://yourReturnUrl.com"
	},
	"Order": {
		"AmountOfMoney": {
			"Amount": 100,
			"CurrencyCode": "EUR"
		}
	}
}

Properties	Remarks
hostedCheckoutSpecificInput.returnURL	The URL we redirect your customers to after the payment has been finalised
order.amountOfMoney amount currencyCode	amount: The gross amount you want to charge for this order currencyCode: The ISO 4217 currency code for this amount

Find detailed information about this object and its properties in our HostedCheckoutAPI

Hosted Tokenization Page

Add the following properties to a standard Create Payment request (including mandatory 3-D Secure properties) after you have tokenised the card:


{
	"CardPaymentMethodSpecificInput": {
		"Token": "tokenId",
		"ThreeDSecure": {
			"RedirectionData": {
				"ReturnUrl": "https://yourRedirectionUrl.com"
				}
			}
		},
		"Order": {
			"AmountOfMoney": {
				"Amount": 100,
				"CurrencyCode": "EUR"
			},
			"Customer": {
				"Device": {
                                "AcceptHeader": 
"text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,image/apng,*/*;q=0.8,application/signed-exchange;v=b3",
				"Locale": "en_EN",
				"TimezoneOffsetUtcMinutes": -180,
				"UserAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/75.0.3770.142 Safari/537.36",
				"Browserdata": {
					"ColorDepth": 24,
					"JavaScriptEnabled": false,
					"ScreenHeight": "1080",
					"ScreenWidth": "1920"
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

Properties	Remarks
cardPaymentMethodSpecificInput.token	Token: The tokenised credit card credentials you have received by tokenising the credentials/getting the token. Learn more in our dedicated Hosted Tokenization Page guide
cardPaymentMethodSpecificInput.threeDSecure redirectionData.returnURL skipAuthentication	returnURL: The URL we redirect your customers to after the payment has been finalised skipAuthentication: Indicate whether to roll out 3-D Secure for this order
order.amountOfMoney amount currencyCode	amount: The gross amount you want to charge for this order currencyCode: The ISO 4217 currency code for this amount
customer.device acceptHeader locale timezoneOffsetUtcMinutes userAgent browserdata colorDepth javaScriptEnabled screenHeight screenWidth	Minimum properties to comply with SCA for 3-D Secure authentication Check our dedicated guide to learn how to request 3-D Secure correctly and our API reference for more information about the properties.

Find detailed information about this object and its properties in our HostedTokenizationAPI/ CreatePaymentAPI

Server-to-server

Add the following properties to a standard CreatePayment request (including mandatory 3-D Secure properties):

{
	"CardPaymentMethodSpecificInput": {
		"PaymentProductId": XXX,
		"SkipAuthentication": false,
		"Card": {
			"CardholderName": "John Doe",
			"CardNumber": "0000000000000000",
			"Cvv": 123,
			"ExpiryDate": 1236
		},
		"ThreeDSecure": {
			"RedirectionData": {
				"ReturnUrl": "https://yourRedirectionUrl.com"
			}
		}
	},
	"Order": {
		"AmountOfMoney": {
			"Amount": 100,
			"CurrencyCode": "EUR"
		},
		"Customer": {
			"Device": {
				"AcceptHeader": "text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,image/apng,*/*;q=0.8,application/signed-exchange;v=b3",
				"Locale": "en_EN",
				"TimezoneOffsetUtcMinutes": -180,
				"UserAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/75.0.3770.142 Safari/537.36",
				"Browserdata": {
					"ColorDepth": 24,
					"JavaScriptEnabled": false,
					"ScreenHeight": "1080",
					"ScreenWidth": "1920"
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

Properties	Remarks
cardPaymentMethodSpecificInput.paymentProductId cardPaymentMethodSpecificInput.card cardholderName cardNumber cvv expiryDate cardPaymentMethodSpecificInput.ThreeDSecure redirectionData.returnURL skipAuthentication	paymentProductId: The numeric identifier of the payment method on our platform. Find this id in the "Overview" chapter cardPaymentMethodSpecificInput.card: The credentials of the card used for the payment Make sure to fulfill the necessary PCI DSS requirements for sending sensitive data returnURL: The URL we redirect your customers to after the payment has been finalised skipAuthentication: Indicate whether to roll out 3-D Secure for this order
order.amountOfMoney amount currencyCode	amount: The gross amount you want to charge for this order currencyCode: The ISO 4217 currency code for this amount
customer.device acceptHeader locale timezoneOffsetUtcMinutes userAgent browserdata colorDepth javaScriptEnabled screenHeight screenWidth	Minimum properties to comply with SCA for 3-D Secure authentication Check our dedicated guide to learn how to request 3-D Secure correctly and our API reference for more information about the properties.

Properties

Remarks

cardPaymentMethodSpecificInput.paymentProductId

cardPaymentMethodSpecificInput.card
cardholderName
cardNumber
cvv
expiryDate

cardPaymentMethodSpecificInput.ThreeDSecure
redirectionData.returnURL
skipAuthentication

paymentProductId: The numeric identifier of the payment method on our platform. Find this id in the "Overview" chapter

cardPaymentMethodSpecificInput.card: The credentials of the card used for the payment
Make sure to fulfill the necessary PCI DSS requirements for sending sensitive data

returnURL: The URL we redirect your customers to after the payment has been finalised
skipAuthentication: Indicate whether to roll out 3-D Secure for this order

order.amountOfMoney
amount
currencyCode

amount: The gross amount you want to charge for this order
currencyCode: The ISO 4217 currency code for this amount

customer.device
acceptHeader
locale
timezoneOffsetUtcMinutes
userAgent
browserdata
  colorDepth
  javaScriptEnabled
  screenHeight
  screenWidth

Minimum properties to comply with SCA for 3-D Secure authentication

Check our dedicated guide to learn how to request 3-D Secure correctly and our API reference for more information about the properties.

Find detailed information about this object and its properties in our CreatePaymentAPI

Process flows

We offer this payment method for all our integration modes. Regardless of the mode you choose, the flow follows some basic steps as described below. Learn in our dedicated guides about the individual differences

Your customers finalise an order in your shop and select this payment method
You send a CreateHostedCheckout/CreatePayment request to our platform. Depending on your integration mode, differences apply. Check out the “Integration” chapter to find examples for each mode
Our platform sends you a response with instructions for the next steps of the flow
Your customers provide their credit card number and are redirected to their issuer for 3-D Secure authentication
Our system receives the 3-D authentication result from the issuer
We process the transaction and receive the result from the acquirer
We redirect your customer to your returnUrl
You request the transaction result from our platform via GetPayment or receive the result via webhooks
If the transaction was successful, you can deliver the goods / service

Testing

Refer to our Test cases for test data and detailed instructions

Make sure to use the right endpoint and switch back to the live URL as soon as you have finished your tests