American Express and Jawbone plan to let cardholders use future fitness bands for purchases at select merchants
Robin Sidel / Wall Street Journal :
Context & Ripple Effects
The Wall Street Journal report lands one day before Jawbone's product news makes it concrete: the $199 Up4 band ships with NFC built for AmEx payments, turning the partnership into a shippable device rather than a press release. The timing also sits against Jawbone's funding story — the company had just closed a $300M round from BlackRock at roughly a $3B valuation, with the payments feature serving as the flagship differentiator for the Up line.
For American Express, the move extends the network onto third-party hardware at a moment when card credentials are migrating off the plastic card. It is an early data point in a strategy that resurfaces years later, when AmEx is reported to be competing to run the Apple Card network after Goldman Sachs moved to exit.
First-order effects
- Cardholders gain tap-to-pay at select merchants directly from a wristband, with American Express extending acceptance beyond phones and cards to Jawbone's hardware.
- Jawbone gets a marquee network partner for the Up4 just as it needs one: the payments feature becomes the premium tier's selling point above the $100 Up2.
Second-order effects
- Rival wearable makers face pressure to land their own card-network integrations, since 'fitness band that pays' shifts competition from step counts to everyday utility.
- AmEx's willingness to embed its credentials in a partner's device sets the template for its later network bids, including the reported contest for Apple's card business.
Third-order effects
- Jawbone's eventual pivot to a B2B model for clinics and health professionals shows the consumer wristband-payments bet alone could not sustain the business — device-plus-network partnerships did not guarantee durable consumer demand.
- If the pattern holds, payment networks increasingly treat any screen-or-sensor surface as a terminal, making credential distribution — not card issuance — the competitive layer.
The trend: Card networks are pushing credentials onto third-party wearable hardware, but the durability of those consumer bets depends on the hardware partner surviving the category.