American Express Case Study
About Company
American Express Company, also called Amex is a US-based transnational financial services company with specialized payment card services.
The company has its central office in New York City. It ranks as one of the worthiest corporations in the world. Amex is one of the thirty constituents of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) index.
The corporation’s emblem, espoused in 1958, is a centurion (the leader of 100 warriors) or prizefighter. This representation comes out on the corporation’s long-familiar credit cards, charge cards, and traveler’s cheques. American Express has its headquarters in the American Express Tower, situated in the Battery Park City area of Lower Manhattan. The company keeps its business bureaus on the same site.
Amex is the top supplier of traveler’s cheques globally.
Established in 1850 in the form of an express mail sender, the corporation launched travel and financial services to customers throughout the early 1900s.
In 1958, Amex designed its debut paper charge card. In 1969, they introduced the green card, in 1966 the gold card, in 1984 the platinum card, and 1999 the centurion card.
The financial services provider launched the advertising campaign titled Don’t Leave Home Without It in 1975 and regenerated it in 2005.
Throughout the 80s, Amex spent and disinvested in the brokerage sector, via stakeholding in Shearson Lehman Hutton.
In the 90s, they ceased slashing swapping charges for businesses that entirely acknowledged their cards and grew their market share with the help of aimed promotional drives.
They switched to a bank parent company once the 2008 economic disaster took place. The company introduced its airport waiting room facility in 2013.
American Express represents the following:
- As of 2016, 22.9% of the gross dollar amount of countrywide credit card deals with 56.4 million credit cards operational in the United States
- And 121.7 million credit cards worldwide as of 2021
The average amount of expenditure by any Amex cardholder is $23,496 yearly.
2017 was a watershed moment for the company. This year Forbes nominated it as the worthiest brand in the worldwide financial sector, and 23rd on the whole, with an approximate brand worth of US$ 24.5 billion.
In 2020, the firm achieved the 9th rank in the list of the Best 100 Companies to Work For published by Fortune magazine in their cover story. They derived this from a worker satisfaction review.
What type of company is American Express?
Amex is apublicly-traded company.
To which industry does Amex belong?
American Express belongs to the financial services and banking industry.
Which companies are the forerunners of Amex?
The forerunner companies of Amex are:
- Livingston, Fargo & Company
- Wells & Company
- Wells, Butterfield & Company
When did the company come into existence?
The company came into existence on 18th March 1850. This was 173 years back, in Buffalo, NY, US.
Where is the central office of American Express located?
The main office of this US-based financial services provider is located at 200 Vesey Street, Manhattan, New York City, NY 10285, the United States.
Which area does the company serve?
The company has a global client base.
Who are the key people running Amex?
The key individuals running this banking and financial services behemoth are:
- Jeffrey C. Campbell (CFO and Executive VP)
- Stephen J. Squeri (CEO and Chairman)
What are the products and services offered by Amex?
Amex offers the following products and services:
Products
- Credit cards
- Charge cards
- Corporate banking
- Traveler’s cheques
Services
- Insurance
- Finance
- Travel
How many employees work for the organization?
As of December 2022, 77,300 people are working for the organization.
Airport waiting rooms
Amex runs a set-up of Centurion Lounges at key airports which their Centurion and Platinum card affiliates can access. In 2013, the initial waiting room was unveiled at McCarran Airport and the setup has grown since that time. American Express has pacts with other airport waiting rooms to provide the availability to their Centurion and Platinum card affiliates as a feature of the Global Lounge Collection. These waiting room networks comprise:
- Escape Lounges
- Delta Sky Club
- Airspace Lounge
- Plaza Premium Lounges
- Priority Pass
In 2019, Amex took over LoungeBuddy, a supplier which provides pay-per-application availability to chosen airport waiting rooms globally.
Centurion waiting rooms
As of 2021 October, 15 Centurion Lounges are working, and most of them are situated in the United States barring the waiting rooms in London and Hong Kong.
- Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport – Launched in 2013, shifted in 2018
- Charlotte Douglas International Airport – Launched 2020
- Hong Kong International Airport – Launched 2017
- Denver International Airport – Launched 2021
- Harry Reid International Airport – Launched 2013
- Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport – Launched 2016
- Los Angeles International Airport – Launched 2020
- London Heathrow Airport – Launched 2021
- New York-JFK Airport – Launched 2020
- Miami International Airport – Launched in 2015, revamped in 2019
- Philadelphia International Airport – Launched 2017
- New York-LaGuardia Airport – Launched in 2014, Resettled in 2021
- Seattle-Tacoma International Airport – Launched 2015, Grew 2017, Shifted 2023
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport – Launched 2020
- San Francisco International Airport – Launched 2014
The corporation intends to launch a 1,070 m2 (11,500 sq ft) waiting room at Washington-Reagan Airport in 2022, and also a 2,400 m2 (26,000 sq ft) waiting room at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta in 2023.
Consumer card business
American Express is mostly famous for its Platinum, Gold, and Green charge cards. It switched the Gold Card into a credit card for UK citizens in 2018. However, it is still functional as a charge card in the United States.
Co-branded credit cards
Amex has various co-branded credit cards, and the majority of these cards come under one of three classes:
- Hotels: The Peninsula Hotels, Marriott International, Hilton Hotels, and Best Western
- Airways: Aeroméxico, Aerolíneas Argentinas, Air France, Air Canada, British Airways, Alitalia, Delta Air Lines, Cathay Pacific, KLM, Icelandair, Scandinavian Airlines, Qantas, SriLankan Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Virgin Australia, Thai Airways, and so on.
- Merchants: Holt Renfrew, David Jones, Macy’s, Harrods, Lowe’s, Bloomingdales, Dillard’s, Mercedes-Benz, and so on.
Card acknowledgment beyond the United States
Travel and tourism guides like Lonely Planet and Rough Guides distinguish Amex credit cards as being less frequently acknowledged in Europe than Mastercard or Visa.
American Express Chronology
1850
The company began operations in the form of an express mail business in Buffalo, New York. The establishment took place as a joint-stock company by the fusion of the express firms held by the following:
- Livingston, Fargo & Company (William G. Fargo)
- Wells & Company (Henry Wells)
- Wells, Butterfield & Company, the descendant previously in 1850 of Butterfield, Wasson & Company (John Warren Butterfield)
1857
This year, American Express began its development in the financial services domain with the introduction of a money order trade. The aim was to contend with the money orders offered by the United States Post Office.
Railroad express trade
In 1918 July, a new firm known as the American Railway Express Agency came into existence. This was the outcome of the recommendation of William Gibbs McAdoo that all prevailing express businesses should merge into just one establishment to fulfill the interests of the nation. McAdoo was then the Treasury Secretary of the United States and a close confidant of Woodrow Wilson, the then President of the United States.
The 1980s till present
Throughout the 1980s, Amex set out in an attempt to turn into a financial services parent company. In doing so, it performed a slew of acquisitions, forming an investment banking division. Some of the key acquisitions worth mentioning are:
- Sanford I. Weill’s Shearson Loeb Rhoades (the resultant organization is Shearson/American Express) in 1981
- The merger of Hayden, Stone & Co. with Shearson, Hammill & Co. (the resultant company is Shearson Hayden Stone) in 1974
- Subsequently, Shearson Hayden Stone amalgamated with Loeb, Rhoades, Hornblower & Co. (erstwhile Loeb, Rhoades & Co.) to create Shearson Loeb Rhoades in 1979
- In 1984, Amex took over Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, the trading and investment banking company. It included the company to the Shearson group, forming Shearson Lehman/American Express.
- Shearson/American Express acquired the 90-year-old IDS (Investors Diversified Services) in 1984 as well. Shearson got with it a group of investment merchandise and financial consultants.
- Shearson Lehman took over E.F. Hutton & Co., a brokerage firm in 1988. Later, E.F. Hutton fused with the investment banking trade. The name of the investment banking division became Shearson Lehman Hutton, Inc.
- American Express took over Geneva-based Trade Development Bank at US$ 550 million in 1983. Edmond Safra was the proprietor of the bank. Consequently, Safra won his place on the board of directors of Amex. The takeover of the Trade Development Bank by American Express was a feature of James D. Robinson III’s strategy to enter the private investment banking sector.
Controversies
1) Charging order dispute in the United Kingdom
In 2010 November, the Office of Fair Trading warned the UK arm of American Express for the application of contentious charging orders versus indebted people. The controller stated that the firm was one of 4 organizations that were egging on customers to switch their unsecured credit card obligations into a type of secured debt.
2) CFPB departmental action
In 2012 October, CFPB (The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) declared a departmental action with instructions necessitating 3 Amex ancillaries to repay an approximated US $85 million to around 250,000 customers for illegitimate card operations between 2003 and 2012. There were charges that American Express gave ambiguous declarations about registration incentives, billed illegitimate late fines, treated candidates differently because of age, and did not inform customer grievances to controllers deliberately.
3) Merchant costs
Several retail merchants refuse American Express credit cards. The company bills merchants substantially higher charges compared to other credit card companies. Therefore, merchandisers initiated a class action lawsuit against Amex. In this lawsuit of Ohio vs American Express Company, they asserted that billing elevated fees is a breach of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
As mentioned in the legal proceedings, acknowledging Amex credit cards costs businesses the highest. In 2017 January, there was corroboration of a lower court verdict by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Amex could obstruct businesses that acknowledge its cards from pushing consumers to other cards, such as those provided by Mastercard and Visa. In 2018 June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the verdict of the 2nd Circuit Court.
Philanthropy and cultural endeavor
American Express Company is a patron of endeavors to boost the ethnic and architectural legacy. The goal is to evoke consciousness of the significance of diachronic and ecological preservation, via the renovation of historic memorials. It is an originator patron of World Monuments Watch, a worldwide program introduced by the World Monuments Fund in 1995.
American Express stock performance
The common stocks of American Express are traded on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbolAXP. Besides, the stock is a constituent of the indices mentioned below:
- Dow Jones Industrial Average
- S&P 500
- S&P 100
On May 22, 2023, American Express Company (AXP) closed trading at $155.51 with the information furnished below at 04:03 pm EDT (Eastern Daylight Time).
Stock chart
American Express Financial Performance
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