“Don’t leave home without it” is a slogan that you can actually leave home right now.
American Express, which coined the phrase decades ago, is preparing for the inevitable demise of plastic, said chairman and chief executive Kenneth Chenault at the National Retail Federation conference on Tuesday.
“I don’t care if plastic goes away as long as we are where our customers want to be,” Chenault said.
Increasingly, that place tends to be a mobile app and doesn’t involve a physical card at all.
In a room packed with retail executives, Chenault said American Express could easily operate without plastic and its technology is embedded in some of the most ubiquitous apps like Uber.
“We can assign an [account] number, and you can go off without a card right now,” Chenault said, adding, “We can get you up and spending very quickly.”