American Express Buys PayPal Competitor Revolution Money

by Drea Knufken November 18, 2009, 10:02 am 433 Views

American Express today announced its $300 million purchase of Revolution Money, a PayPal competitor backed, among others, by former AOL CEO Steve Case. The Washington Post reports:

Revolution Money, founded in 2007, is designed to provide secure online person-to-person transactions by using a PIN number instead of credit cards or accounts.

The company was founded in 2007 as part of Case’s umbrella Revolution LLC, including Revolution Health, which last year merged with Waterfront Media. Revolution Money was developed to compete with PayPal, a widely used online payment system.

“While Revolution Money is a young and relatively small company, we believe it has big potential,” said American Express Chairman Kenneth I. Chenault in a statement Wednesday.

In addition to Case and Leonsis, Revolution Money investors included Goldman Sachs.

Revolution Money will operate as a subsidiary of American Express.

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