American Express Co. said it will let consumers make purchaseson Verizon Wireless devices as the lender competes for mobilepayments with rivals including Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc. and EBayInc.'s PayPal.

AmEx, the biggest credit-card issuer by purchases, willintegrate its Serve mobile-payments system into many of Verizon'sphones and tablets, the New York-based bank said today in astatement.

The deal with Verizon, the largest U.S. wireless carrier, is thebiggest for Serve since a March rollout led by Dan Schulman, thegroup president of enterprise growth who joined AmEx last year fromSprint Nextel Corp. AmEx struck its first mobile-carrier deal forServe last month with Sprint, based in Overland Park, Kansas.

“Our collaboration with Verizon highlights the speed at whichServe is evolving to reach a wide audience,” Schulman said in thestatement.

Last month, AmEx announced that it will deliver customizeddiscounts and offers to cardholders who allow the lender to minetheir Facebook relationships and online interests. The agreementwith Facebook Inc. may help the social network capitalize on thefast-growing market for daily online coupons made popular by sitessuch as LivingSocial and Groupon Inc.

Greg Haller, president of enterprise and government at VerizonWireless, said Serve will complement another mobile- payment optionthrough the Isis network, a venture of Verizon, AT&T Inc. andT-Mobile USA.

Verizon Wireless, based in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, is ownedby Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc. T- Mobile isa unit of Deutsche Telekom AG.

American Express fell 43 cents, to $49.61 at 10:08 a.m. in NewYork Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares had gained 17percent this year through yesterday, the second-best performance inthe Dow Jones Industrial Average after International BusinessMachines Corp.

Bloomberg News