4
American Express
| Power Score: 78.89 | Momentum Score: 30.59 (5) | HQ: New York, NY | CEO: Stephen Squeri |
Economics
Valuation: $132.4 billion (+75% YoY)
Amt. Raised: n/a
Politics
Lobbying Spend: $1,380,000
Industry Orgs: ETA
People
Headcount:
74,925 (+5% YoY)
Engineering Headcount: 6,534 (+4% YoY)
Big Tech Experience: 0.7%
Open Roles: 1,298
Innovation
R&D Spending: n/a
Patents Applied For: 1,563
Patents Owned: 1,160
Acquisitions: Kabbage (August 2020)
On Power
American Express doesn't have the luxury of volume that Visa and Mastercard have as networks, but the company's approach to digital payments has kept it a leader in the space, especially as it has forged partnerships with newer-wave payments companies. AmEx's long-running
partnership
with PayPal evolved into
Send & Split
, which put the company in the P2P payments space.
The bread and butter for American Express is still commercial payments, and building on that was the second goal in its
2020 annual report
. Overall, the company is the
fourth-largest
card network globally by purchase volume, and as the company continues to put an
emphasis
on signing up new merchants in global markets, it stands to continue its growth trajectory.
On Disruption
American Express is another company riding the crypto wave, investing in crypto trading platform FalconX at the tail end of 2020. Perhaps more consequentially in the near term, AmEx rolled out a small business checking account in what it calls a "broader integrated cash-flow management" strategy. It follows the company's acquisition of SMB lending platform Kabbage in 2020, and is part of a vision to build out a deeper set of products to keep customers within its network.
Tea Leaves
American Express has entered the "buy now, pay later" market with its
Pay It Plan It
offering. BNPL has been said to be a
threat
to the legacy card networks, but as the card networks themselves get into the market, it remains to be seen how the outlook could shift. It's not the only new market American Express is entering: The company is looking at
financial planning
as a new avenue, via a 2020 investment into BodesWell from Amex Ventures.
They Said It
"Developing our card processing network in mainland China has been a priority for us and we're pleased with our progress. Since getting the green light to start processing payments in China eight months ago, we have reached mobile wallet parity coverage through our partnerships — partnerships with China's major mobile wallet providers. And to date, we have added over 14 million merchants to the network at the point of sale." —American Express CEO Stephen Squeri in an April 2021 earnings call
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