Code-named Purchasing Portal, American Express is expected to launch a consumer service in the fourth quarter that will give American Express cardholders access to American Express's own negotiated rates for thousands of products that it buys annually.

In addition, plans calls for a service that will monitor consumer cellular phone bills and help recover funds when a network provider makes a billing error or overcharges.

American Express spends approximately $1 billion per year on MRO (maintenance, repair, and operations) products. MRO typically includes everything from furniture, electronics equipment, and computers to mops and cleaning supplies. The new service will aggregate dozens of MRO shopping catalogs from suppliers such as Staples, Best Buy, and Dell into a single master shopping catalog.

"Once you get a finite set of about 100 catalogs, you have basically all the catalogs that exist," said Rion Needs, senior vice president of global financial operations and business transformation at American Express.

The master catalog will be hosted by American Express and will allow users to comparison shop but still buy directly from the various vendors without having to "punch out" to individual catalog sites.

The idea behind Purchasing Portal stems from a little-noticed announcement American Express made last week when it launched two new b-to-b services, Contract Audit & Recovery and Catalog Pro, as part of its Source-to-Settle suite of hosted applications.

One industry analyst said that these services could have far-reaching repercussions for b-to-b business, retailing, and consumers. 

By passing on the value of American Express's aggregate spending to the individual, it could dramatically increase the amount of online spending, according to Josh Greenbaum, principal at Enterprise Applications Consulting.

"This could give consumers confidence that they are getting the absolute best deal by shopping online rather than with a big-box retailer."

Online retailers may also benefit if American Express is willing to guarantee the validity of the card. At present, the merchant eats the whole price of an online purchase if there is fraud.

"If it is an unsigned deal, the credit card company doesn’t lose a penny."

The service would also vastly simplify the procurement process, especially for smaller businesses where integration from the sell site to the numerous different procurement engines companies use is always an issue.