American Express launches Social Currency app powered by foursquare

There are very few places for young adults to get financial information that is specific to their unique needs. American Express has partnered with Federated Media in a bid to make that information more accessible. Together they’ve launched Currency, a site offering tips on saving and spending that lets users share their own knowledge through a purpose-built social network.

As part of Currency, they’ve launched a free iPhone app called Social Currency that is built on the foursquare platform. It includes many of the features that should have made their way into foursquare 2.0. Users can upload photos with each checkin and post comments on their friends’ checkins. All the standard (pre-2.0) foursquare features are included as well, such as searching for venues, checking in, seeing your friends’ locations, finding tips and managing to-dos all with a beautifully designed interface.

The idea is to share your purchases and wants with your social network. When you check in at a store, you can share a photo of what you purchased along with how much it cost. If it’s something you want, you can add it to a list like “Birthday” or “Christmas.”

All the checkins, along with their associated purchases and wants (sans photos, of course), are pushed directly to your foursquare account. On top of the foursquare badges you earn, there are also badges strictly tied to the Currency platform. Their look was so similar to actual foursquare badges that I had to check to make sure they weren’t foursquare badges.

Your friends’ nearby purchases and wants show up in the iPhone app, in a fashion almost identical to the way foursquare displays nearby tips and to-dos. You can comment on any of the checkins, purchases or wants for any user that has joined Currency, whether their checkin was posted through Social Currency or another foursquare app.

Social Currency makes a very nice foursquare app, with features that should have been included in foursquare 2.0 (but probably won’t appear until later this year). The social network built around finances offers some very intriguing possibilities. It will be interesting to see how this platform develops.

UPDATE (9/22): According to the FAQ on getcurrency.com, the Social Currency badges will soon be displayed on your foursquare profile. Thanks to Read Write Web for pointing it out.

Do my Social Currency Badges show up on my foursquare Badge list?
Soon, they will. At the moment, they don’t.

UPDATE (9/23): The aforementioned FAQ page has been changed. It now says the badges won’t show up on your foursquare profile.

Below are some screenshots from the app: