Amex and I go back to 1998, when I was growing up in the world of bank cards, learning the wonders of carrying revolving debt. But I aspired to have an American Express card, specifically, their “green card.” The business model was different than the Mastercard and Visa in my wallet. It shifted my thinking from carrying a balance on my card to spending only what I could afford to paying in full monthly.
You can revolve now at Amex, but the discipline has been burned into my budget for years, and for that, I always think of saying “thank you.”
Staying Power
So much has gone on at American Express in the past few years. Steve Squeri became CEO in 2018 after Ken Chenault retired. If the payments industry ever had a “Hall of Fame,” Chenault would be high on the list. Among other things, he coined the word “spendcentric” to illustrate that American Express’ strategy was to build credit relationships based on transactional fees, which were less risky than bank strategies that built revenue on risk-based interest.
In his shareholder letter, dated yesterday, Squeri lists six topics in his annual review:
- $72 billion in revenue
- 12.4 million proprietary cards acquired
- >70% of newly acquired accounts paying fees
- 30 consecutive quarters of double-digit net card fee revenue growth
- 170 million merchant acceptance locations
- 65% of consumer account acquisitions from millennials and Gen Z
And credit quality has always been a mainstay. We touched on this in Javelin’s annual review of Dodd-Frank stress testing. Among 16 top financial service companies, American Express’ potential loss rates under severely stressed financial conditions were projected at only 9.7%, compared to the all-bank average of 16.9%.
A New Business Card in the Mix
In a separate announcement, American Express launched a new line of business credit cards under the moniker of Graphite Business Cash Unlimited. Graphite will stand with Amex’s line of business card products, which include Business Green, Gold, and Platinum, Amazon Business, Blue Business, Delta Business, Marriott Business, and Hilton Business.
We think Graphite will be a winner, too. Watch for Javelin’s upcoming report on the Small Business credit card market, planned for July 2026. Javelin Card Bench is currently live in the Canadian market, and we find the issuer facing off aggressively with top Canadian small business card issuers like BMO, CIBC, TD, and Scotiabank. Card Bench has a beta-version for small business cards in the U.S., and will soon integrate Graphite into the tracking of 74 small business cards issued by 20 issuers, ranging from American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Citi, Wells Fargo, and US Bank, plus smaller issuers like 5/3, Huntington, Regions, and Truist.
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