American Express

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American Express has been headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in Lower Manhattan since 1986. The company plans to move to a new headquarters at 2 World Trade Center in 2031.

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American Express is an American financial services company best known for its charge and credit cards. The company also operates a global payment network, processes transactions for merchants, and provides banking, travel, dining, and expense-management services to consumers and businesses.

Founded in 1850 to provide fast, secure transportation of goods, valuables, and money between cities, American Express has grown into one of the world’s largest payment companies. Headquartered in New York City, it had about 76,800 employees at the end of 2025. Shares of the company trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol AXP.

American Express, commonly called Amex, organizes its operations into four segments:

American Express differs from its major competitors by issuing cards directly to consumers and businesses while also operating the network that connects cardholders with merchants. In comparison, Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA) primarily operate payment networks and rely on banks and other financial institutions to issue cards bearing their names.

This structure allows American Express to make money in several ways. Its largest source of revenue is the discount fee it receives from merchants when customers use American Express cards. The company also earns interest on card balances and other loans, charges annual card fees, and collects income from travel, foreign exchange, merchant services, and other products. Its banking business accepts deposits and offers checking and savings accounts, certificates of deposit (CDs), and loans.

In 2025, spending using American Express cards issued by the company totaled $1.67 trillion, and the company added 12.5 million new cards. American Express reported $72.2 billion in revenue and $10.8 billion in net income for the year.

The original company was founded on March 18, 1850, through the consolidation of three companies active in the express transport of goods, valuables, and specie between New York City and Buffalo, New York, as well as points in the Midwest:

American Express was at first an unincorporated association of investors headed by Wells as president and Fargo as secretary. By the end of the American Civil War, its business had flourished, with some 900 offices in 10 states, and attracted competition in 1866 in the formation of Merchants Union Express Company. For two years the two companies engaged in cutthroat competition. On the verge of financial exhaustion, they finally merged on November 25, 1868, to form the American Merchants Union Express Company, with Fargo succeeding as president. The company was renamed American Express Company in 1873.

Upon Fargo’s death in 1881, his younger brother, James Congdell Fargo (1829–1915), became president and guided the company for the next 33 years. During his tenure, American Express introduced the American Express Money Order (1882) and the American Express Travelers Cheque (1891) and opened the first European office in Paris (1895).

International expansion continued with the opening of offices in other European countries, including England (1896) and Germany (1898). In the early 1900s the company began offering services in Argentina, Brazil, China, Japan, Egypt, and India. When the U.S. federal government nationalized the express industry in 1918, consolidating all domestic express operations in the American Railway Express Company ( REA Express, Inc.), American Express turned largely to banking and travel services, which it had begun offering in 1915.

After leaving the express business in 1918, American Express focused on financial and travel services. Its international offices sold and cashed traveler’s checks, exchanged currency, booked transportation and accommodations, and helped customers plan trips. During the Great Depression, the company continued cashing traveler’s checks and money orders during the national bank holiday of 1933, when banks across the United States were temporarily closed.

World War II sharply curtailed international travel and forced American Express to close many of its overseas offices. The company nevertheless arranged travel for U.S. government personnel and sold traveler’s checks and money orders to service members, their families, and other essential travelers. As Allied forces retook parts of Europe, American Express began reopening offices and resumed arranging tours for U.S. military personnel.

In 1944, American Express established a field warehousing subsidiary, which certified inventories held by businesses and issued warehouse receipts that could be used as collateral for loans. The company viewed the business as an extension of its financial services and a way to strengthen its relationships with banks that sold American Express traveler’s checks and money orders.

After the war, international tourism expanded rapidly, and American Express rebuilt and enlarged its travel business. By the mid-1950s, the company operated hundreds of offices, and annual sales of traveler’s checks had reached billions of dollars.

American Express entered the payment card business in 1958, introducing its first charge card in the U.S. and Canada. Cardholders were required to pay their bill in full when it was due, rather than carry a balance from one billing period to the next. The original card was purple, reflecting the color of the company’s traveler’s checks. The card quickly gained popularity. From 1959 to 1969, the number of cardholders increased to 3.2 million from 700,000, while spending on the cards increased more than tenfold.

As the card business grew, American Express added products for different types of customers and expanded internationally. In 1966, it introduced two new products: the Corporate Card for business customers and the American Express Bank Credit Card, which allowed customers to carry a balance using a line of credit provided through participating banks.

In 1969, American Express redesigned its original purple charge card in green to evoke the color of U.S. currency. The green card became the company’s flagship card and one of its most recognizable products. In 1972, the company began allowing financial institutions in some overseas markets to issue American Express cards, extending the reach of its payment network without issuing every card itself.

During this period, the company also underwent a significant structural change. American Express, which had operated as a joint-stock association since its founding in 1850, incorporated in New York in 1965. Its shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in 1977. The company also acquired Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company, expanding into casualty and property insurance.

As it entered the 1980s, American Express expanded further into financial services through a series of acquisitions. In 1981, it acquired brokerage firm Shearson Loeb Rhoades for about $930 million. Shearson subsequently acquired investment bank Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb in 1984 and brokerage firm E.F. Hutton in 1988, creating one of the largest securities firms in the U.S.

American Express expanded further into financial services in 1984 with its purchase of Investors Diversified Services for $773 million. The Minneapolis-based company’s products included mutual funds, insurance, and financial planning. That same year, American Express introduced the Platinum Card, a premium charge card initially available by invitation to selected customers.

American Express’s expansion into securities proved difficult to sustain, particularly after the 1987 stock market crash. The company began dismantling its securities operations in the early 1990s, selling Shearson’s retail brokerage and asset-management businesses to Primerica in 1993 and spinning off the remaining Lehman Brothers operations as Lehman Brothers Holdings the following year. In 1993, Harvey Golub succeeded James D. Robinson III as American Express’s chief executive officer.

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Kenneth Chenault led American Express as CEO from 2001 to 2018, a period that included the 2005 Ameriprise spin-off and the 2008 financial crisis.

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Under Golub, American Express concentrated more heavily on its card and travel businesses. During the 1990s, it expanded its Membership Rewards loyalty program and partnerships with other companies, including the introduction of its first co-branded card with Hilton in 1995. In 1997, American Express established Global Network Services, which expanded arrangements with banks and other financial institutions to issue American Express cards on its payment network.

Kenneth Chenault, who joined American Express in 1981 and was named president and chief operating officer beginning in 1997, became CEO in 2001. The company continued narrowing its focus in 2005 by spinning off American Express Financial Advisors, the business descended from Investors Diversified Services, as the independent company Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (AMP). The spin-off was completed September 30, leaving American Express more concentrated on its payments, network, and travel businesses.

By late 2007, the collapse of the U.S. housing market was beginning to strain the broader economy and financial system. As economic conditions weakened, American Express saw cardholder spending slow while past-due accounts and credit losses increased. The company increased its reserves for credit losses and adopted a more cautious outlook for the coming year.

Conditions deteriorated sharply in 2008. As unemployment rose and the global financial crisis deepened, cardholder spending declined and delinquencies and credit losses increased. At the same time, turmoil in the credit markets drove up American Express’s borrowing costs and disrupted its ability to raise money through unsecured debt and securitizations, important sources of funding for its card lending.

In November 2008, American Express became a bank holding company. The move placed it under Federal Reserve supervision, helped broaden its sources of funding, and gave it greater access to government assistance. The company subsequently received $3.4 billion through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), established under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, and repaid the money in 2009.

American Express also increased its use of customer deposits as a source of funding, with deposits rising to $26.3 billion in 2009 from $15.5 billion the year before. As the economy recovered, card spending and earnings rebounded, while the company continued emphasizing rewards and other benefits intended to attract and retain higher-spending cardholders. In 2010, American Express created Small Business Saturday, an annual promotion encouraging consumers to shop at small businesses on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

The company expanded perks for premium cardholders in 2013, when it opened the first Centurion Lounge at McCarran International Airport (now Harry Reid International Airport) in Las Vegas. By 2026, the network had grown to more than 30 airport lounges worldwide.

American Express experienced a fresh blow in 2015 after it and Costco Wholesale (COST) failed to agree on terms that “would have made economic sense” for extending their 16-year partnership. American Express was the only credit card network accepted at Costco’s U.S. stores and issued American Express cards with the Costco logo. Those cards generated about 8% of American Express’s worldwide card spending and accounted for 19% of its card member loans. The partnership ended the next year, when Costco switched to Visa as its credit card network and Citi (C) as the issuer of its cards. The companies had ended a similar arrangement in Canada in 2014.

In February 2018, Chenault retired as chairman and CEO after more than 16 years and was succeeded by Stephen Squeri, a longtime company executive. Under Squeri, American Express sought to increase the number of merchants that accepted American Express cards and add new cardholder benefits. The company also expanded further into travel and dining services, acquiring LoungeBuddy, an airport lounge booking service, and Resy, a restaurant reservation app, in 2019.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic the next year disrupted two important sources of spending for American Express: travel and entertainment. The company responded by adding benefits for purchases that cardholders were making closer to home, while providing financial assistance to some customers and merchants.

As travel and consumer spending recovered in the aftermath of the pandemic, American Express increasingly sought younger customers for its premium cards. Millennials and members of Generation Z became its fastest-growing age group for new consumer accounts and card spending.