American Express Company - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the American Express Q3 2023 earnings call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star then one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a tone indicating you have been placed in queue. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star then two. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing the numbers. Should you require assistance during the call, please press star then zero. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to our host, Head of Investor Relations, Ms. Kerri Bernstein. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Kerri Bernstein (SVP and Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Donna, and thank you all for joining today's call. As a reminder before we begin, today's discussion contains forward-looking statements about the company's future business and financial performance. These are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements are included in today's presentation slides and in our reports on file with the SEC. The discussion today also contains non-GAAP financial measures. The comparable GAAP financial measures are included in this quarter's earnings materials, as well as the earnings materials for the prior periods we discuss. All of these are posted on our website at ir.americanexpress.com. We'll begin today with Stephen Squeri, Chairman and CEO, who will start with some remarks about the company's progress and results.

Christophe Le Caillec, Chief Financial Officer, will provide a more detailed review of our financial performance. After that, we'll move to a Q&A session on the results with both Stephen and Christophe. With that, let me turn it over to Stephen.

Stephen J. Squeri (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Kerri. Good morning, and thanks for joining us today for our third quarter earnings call. Q3 was our seventh consecutive quarter of strong performance, continuing the momentum we've built over the last few years and aligned with the growth plan we announced in 2022. It was the sixth consecutive quarter of record revenues, which reached $15.4 billion, up 13% year-over-year. Earnings per share of $3.30 was also a new quarterly record. Based on our performance to date, we remain confident in our ability to achieve full-year revenue growth and EPS and EPS growth that is consistent with the annual guidance we provided at the beginning of the year.

We are well-positioned as we seek to achieve our growth plan aspirations of annual revenue growth in excess of 10% and mid-teens EPS growth in 2024 and beyond in a steady-state macro environment. My confidence is based on several factors, including the many attractive opportunities available to us because of the businesses and geographies we operate in, our unique membership model, which powers a virtuous cycle of growth, the success of the strategic investments we've been making in key areas of our business, and our ability to leverage our differentiated business model, which includes our premium global customer base, integrated payments platform, strong partner relationships, and trusted brand. Together, these factors have driven our strong performance over the past two years, including the continued momentum we saw in the third quarter.

In the quarter, card member spending remained strong, up 7% year-over-year on an FX-adjusted basis. Spending was strongest in our U.S. consumer segment, up 9%, and international card services segment, up 15% on an FX-adjusted basis. U.S. small business spending increased slightly from a year ago. Millennial and Gen Z consumers continue to be the fastest-growing portion of our card member base, with spending from this demographic in the U.S. up 18% year-over-year, and they accounted for more than 60% of all new consumer account acquisitions globally in the quarter. Demand for our products remain robust, particularly for fee-based products, which represented more than 70% of the new accounts acquired in the quarter. Customers continue to be highly satisfied with our products and services, which drives high levels of engagement and retention.

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The number of Resy users, restaurants on the platform, and reservations booked all continued to grow significantly. In Q3, reservations on the platform set another quarterly record. Over the last few years, we've also ramped up the number of exclusive lifestyle experiences, sponsorships, and access to events we offer that appeal to our card members across generations and geographies and reinforce the unique value of membership. Our highly popular experiences cut across entertainment, sports, food, art, and fashion. They generate strong on-site engagement with our branded activities and offers, and they help drive interest among prospects. They also continue to attract world-class partners who work with us to add new ways for our card members and prospects to experience the power of Amex membership.

Earlier this week, we announced our latest sponsorship, an exclusive multi-year agreement with Formula One to be the official payments partner of Formula One in the Americas. This sponsorship is our first new sports vertical in over 10 years, and it represents a great opportunity to build on the rapidly growing popularity of Formula One racing around the world. Another way we're delivering generational relevance is by regularly refreshing and adding value to our products on a global basis. These product enhancements are tailored to the interests and spending patterns of our customers of all age groups in each local market. So far this year, we've made enhancements to over 20 premium products across the company. Some of the latest of which were refreshes of our Platinum Card products in Japan, our Business Gold Card in the U.S., and just yesterday, our Hilton co-branded consumer cards.

These examples and many others like them are further enriching our membership model, which helps us attract new premium customers, drive retention, and deepen engagement with current customers, and add more merchants and partners who provide offers and experiences that deliver additional value. Looking ahead, I feel very good about where we are and where we're going. We'll continue our strategy of investing for growth and adding more differentiated value to our membership model to deliver generational relevance while continuing to leverage the strengths of our business model, all of which gives us a competitive advantage. I'll now hand the call over to Christophe Le Caillec for additional detail on our quarterly results.

Christophe Le Caillec (CFO)

Thank you, Stephen, and good morning, everyone. I'm excited to have my first earnings call be one where we discuss our continued strong momentum, which is reflected in our record revenue and EPS in the third quarter. I would like to take a minute at the outset to share my perspective on the company as someone who has been here for a long time and through various business environments. The company is very focused on driving high levels of profitable revenue growth. A key enabler of that growth has been the discipline we use to deploy our resources. As a result, the underlying quality of our business is very strong, and I have confidence in the sustainability of the growth drivers that we are seeing. We have accelerated the pace of our revenue and EPS growth since before the pandemic.

That acceleration is a direct result of the strategy that underpins our growth plan, which Stephen described. In the quarter, that strategy has driven $27 billion more in billings versus last quarter. The company is also generating almost $2 billion more in revenue and about $600 million more in net income compared to a year ago. This demonstrates the earnings power of our business model. Now, let's take a look at the details of this quarter's performance. Starting with our summary financials on slide two. Third quarter revenues were $15.4 billion. They reached a record high for the sixth straight quarter and were up 13% year-over-year. This revenue momentum drove reported net income of $2.5 billion and earnings per share of $3.30, which grew 34% year-over-year.

Let's now go to a more detailed look at the drivers of these results. In our spend-centric business model, that begins with a look at bill business, starting on slide three. Total bill business grew $27 billion this quarter versus last year, up 7% on an FX-adjusted basis, as we continue to see the more stable growth rates that we expected. This growth was driven by 6% growth in goods and services spending, consistent with last quarter's growth rate and sustained double-digit growth in travel and entertainment spending. This double-digit T&E growth has been driven by continued demand for travel and dining experiences, with restaurant spending, our largest category, up 13% this quarter. Total network volumes grew 6% year-over-year on an FX-adjusted basis.

As you look at these results, I'd note that we exited a small product last quarter that was reported in our process volumes. This is reflected in the Q3 growth rate. I'd expect to see the impact of the year-over-year growth rate continue for the next few quarters until we lap this exit. As a reminder, processed volume includes volumes from cards where we play more of a network role and from alternative payment solutions that we facilitate. The revenue associated with these volumes makes up a small portion of our total revenue, which you can see on slide 11. As we then break down our spending trends across our businesses, there are a few other key points to take away. Starting with our largest segment on slide four. U.S. consumer grew billing strongly at 9% this quarter.

Our focus on attracting, engaging, and retaining our premium card members is driving growth across all generations and age cohorts. Millennial and Gen Z customers continue to drive our highest billed business growth within this segment, with their spending up 18% this quarter. Looking at Commercial Services on slide five, U.S. SME growth came in at 2% this quarter, consistent with last quarter's growth rate. As Stephen discussed on our Q2 call, organic growth in this segment has slowed, given unique dynamics seen by small businesses over the past few years. Importantly, we do continue to see strong, high-quality demand for new accounts within this segment. Looking forward, we focus on continuing to help SME clients run their businesses. Billings from our U.S. large and global corporate customers were flat year-over-year.

As we have said for many years, these customers are not a major growth driver for our business, but they remain an important foundation for the company's business model. Lastly, on slide six, you see our highest growth again this quarter in International Card Services. We saw strong growth across our geographies and customer types. Spending from international consumers and from international SME and large corporate customers each grew 15%. Overall, strength in spending growth from our U.S. consumers and Card Members outside of the U.S. continues to offset the softness with Commercial Services that we've been talking about for the past few quarters. Taking everything into account, our spending volumes are tracking to support our revenue guidance for the full year and our long-term aspirations for sustainable growth rates greater than what we were generating pre-pandemic.

Now, moving on to loans and card member receivables on slide 7. We saw year-over-year growth of 15%, as well as good continued sequential growth. As our customers continue to rebuild balances, the interest-bearing portion of our loans and receivables balances continues to grow faster than the overall growth you see. Importantly, over 70% of our revolving loan growth in the U.S. continues to come from our tenured customers. As you then turn to credit and provision on slide 8-10, the high credit quality of our customer base continues to show in our best-in-class credit performance. As you can see on slide 8, our card member loans and receivables write-offs and delinquency rates both remained fairly flat to last quarter and below pre-pandemic levels.

Going forward, as we've talked about for many quarters now, we continue to expect this delinquency and write-off rates to increase over time, and they're likely to remain below pre-pandemic levels in the fourth quarter. Turning now to the accounting of this credit performance on Slide 9. The quarter-over-quarter growth in our loan balances, combined with a modest increase in our Card Member loans and receivables delinquency rate, resulted in a $321 million reserve build. This reserve build, combined with net write-offs, drove $1.2 billion of provision expense in the third quarter. As you see on Slide 10, we ended the third quarter with $5 billion of reserves, representing 2.7% of our total loans and Card Member receivables. This reserve rate remained about 20 basis points below the level we had pre-pandemic or Day 1 CECL.

We continue to expect this reserve rate to increase a bit in the balance of the year, similar to the modest increases we've seen over the past few quarters. Moving next to revenue on slide 11. Total revenues were up $1.8 billion, or 13% year-over-year in the third quarter. Our largest revenue line, discount revenue, grew 7% year-over-year in Q3. As you can see on slide 12, driven by spending trends we discussed earlier. Net card fee revenues were up 19% year-over-year on an FX-adjusted basis, as you can see on slide 13. This growth remains very strong and is powered by the continued attractiveness to both new and existing customers of our fee-paying products due to the investment we've made in our premium value propositions.

As we expected, growth moderated a bit this quarter from the high levels we saw earlier this year, reflecting our cycle of product refreshes. This quarter, we acquired 2.9 million new cards. Importantly, the acquisition levels you see on slide 13 remain consistent with our long-term growth aspirations. The spend, revenue, and credit profiles of our new card members continue to look strong relative to what we saw pre-pandemic. Moving on to slide 14, you can see that net interest income was up 33% year-over-year on an FX-adjusted basis, driven mostly by the growth in our revolving loan balances. To sum up revenues on slide 15, we're seeing broad-based revenue momentum across our diversified revenue lines. For 2023, we expect revenue growth to be within the range we communicated in January at around 15% growth for the full year.

Moving to expenses on slide 16, variable customer engagement expenses came in at 40% of total revenues in the third quarter. Therefore, I now expect that these costs to run at around 42% of total revenues on the full-year basis. Looking forward, we view this cost as a key driver of our momentum as we continue to innovate our value propositions, to deepen engagement with our premium Card Members, and to attract new ones, as Stephen discussed earlier. On the marketing line, we invested $1.2 billion in the quarter. I still expect to have marketing spend of around $5.5 billion for the full year, fairly flat to our 2022 expense.

We feel really good about the quality of our new card acquisitions, which I talked about earlier, and I continue to see great demand for our products across a wide range of attractive investment opportunities. Given this strong set of opportunities, I would expect to increase our marketing spend in the balance of this year, and we're confident that our sophisticated acquisition engine will continue to do so in an efficient way. Moving to the bottom of slide 16 brings us to operating expenses, which were $3.7 billion in the third quarter as we invest in critical areas such as our talented colleague base and technology. Taking this into account, we now expect our full-year operating expenses to be around $14.5 billion. Looking forward, we continue to view marketing and OpEx as a key source of leverage.

Turning next to capital on slide 17. We returned $1.7 billion of capital to our shareholders in the third quarter. This included common stock repurchase of $1.3 billion and $438 million in common stock dividends, all on the back of strong earnings generation. As you can see on slide 17, we target a CET1 ratio between 10%-11%. We ended the quarter with a CET1 ratio of 10.7%, which is well above our current regulatory minimum of 7%. As we think about the Basel III proposal, the RWA increase could consume the buffer above regulatory capital requirements if the proposal is adopted as written. Notably, we believe there are clear opportunities for improvements between the proposal and the final rule.

In fact, the regulators themselves have posed questions about potential issues in applying these rules broadly, and we are actively engaged in that dialogue. We plan to continue to return to shareholders the excess capital we generate while supporting our balance sheet growth. We do not expect any material near-term changes to our capital management approach. That brings me to our growth plan and 2023 guidance on slide 18. As Stephen and I discussed, our third quarter results, sorry, reflect a continuation of the strong momentum we've built over the last few years, evidenced by our performance across diversified revenue streams. For the full year, we expect revenue growth of around 15%, consistent with the revenue guidance range we provided at the beginning of the year.

As I discussed before, we now expect Variable Card Member Engagement expenses to be around 42% of total revenues on a full-year basis, modestly below our original expectation. On marketing, we still expect to spend around $5.5 billion for the full year. Lastly, we now expect our operating expenses to be around $14.5 billion this year, modestly above our original expectation, as we invest in areas critical to our success. Taking everything together, our earnings per share guidance remains between $11 and $11.40. Looking forward, we remain committed to focusing on achieving our aspirations of sustainably delivering revenue growth in excess of 10 and mid-teen EPS growth in a steady-state macro environment. With that, we'll open up the call for your questions in a moment.

A final point, which relates to our Investor Relations teams here at American Express. Stephen and I have decided to move Kerri Bernstein to the critical role of Corporate Treasurer. I'd like to thank Kerri for leading the I.R. function during a period of strong performance for the company. I'd then like to welcome Kartik Ramachandran, our new Head of Investor Relations. Kartik was most recently a key business finance lead in our U.S. consumer business and has had a number of finance positions over his 11 years with the company. Now, let me turn it back over to Kerri to open up the call for your questions.

Kerri Bernstein (SVP and Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Christophe. Before we open up the lines for Q&A, I will ask those in the queue to please limit yourself to just one question. Thank you for your cooperation, and with that, the operator will now open up the line for questions. Operator?

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star, then one on your touch-tone phone. You'll hear a tone indicating that you've been placed in queue. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star, then two. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing the numbers. One moment, please, for the first question. Our first question is coming from Sanjay Sakhrani of KBW. Please go ahead.

Sanjay Sakhrani (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Thanks. Good morning and congrats, Christophe, Kerri, Kartik. Stephen, just a question. We hear a lot about the choppy macro backdrop and its impact on spending. I'm just curious if you've seen any changes, behavioral, over the past quarter that might make you more sanguine or on the outlook, or do you feel like your customers are unfazed? Just on a related point, you know, I know the Delta stuff, there's been a lot of headlines on the changes that Delta has made to the Medallion qualification process. I'm just curious if you've seen any impact. Thanks.

Christophe Le Caillec (CFO)

Yeah. Thanks, Sanjay. Let me start with Delta first. I think, you know, as Delta makes changes, we're in lockstep with them all the way. You know, one of the great things about having Delta as a partner is they're a very customer-focused organization. They made some changes. The team got some reaction, and I think they made some other changes, which I think will be, you know, and have been received in a very good fashion. As far as spending or card acquisition, it has had zero impact. We haven't seen anything from card spending on Delta or from card acquisition. In fact, you know, Delta card spending year-over-year was up almost 20%.

We feel pretty good about that. As far as the U.S. consumer, and let's just talk about the U.S. consumer and international consumer, it's still strong. You know, we had 9% U.S. consumer spending, 6% growth on goods and services, you know, 13% growth on T.&E., and that continues to be very strong off a high base. You know, from an international perspective, we've seen 15% spending, you know, from an international card services perspective and strong both from a goods and services and a T.&E. perspective. I think it's important that I'll remind everybody.

You know, our card base is, you know, a really small piece of the overall U.S. economy. You know, one of the reasons we have such great credit metrics is we have a really high-quality card member. At this point in time, they have not been impacted by anything. The other thing that I would say is, you know, you probably had the same question at this time last year. You know, I probably gave you the same answer. Right now, look, we can only, you know, manage the business for what we're seeing in our business, which is still strong growth. You know, we use the blue-chip economic forecast, and, you know, that calls for pretty much more of the same.

In a steady-state macro environment, I feel really good about, you know, delivering on, delivering on our plan. As Christophe said, you know, we are, we are well-positioned, and as I said in my remarks, we're well-positioned, you know, to continue to deliver on our growth plan.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is coming from Ryan Nash of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Ryan Nash (Managing Director in Equity Research)

Hey, good morning, Stephen. Good morning, Christophe.

Christophe Le Caillec (CFO)

Good morning.

Ryan Nash (Managing Director in Equity Research)

You know, look, you know, as a follow-up to Sanjay's question, obviously, it was good to see, you know, the solid revenue growth, you know, given the challenging economic backdrop. You know, you're still talking about double-digit revenue growth next year, but maybe just talk about, you know, some of the pieces or the drivers you expect to see, you know, given what's going on in billings growth. Are you leaning more into lending in order to drive this growth? Then just lastly, like, do we need to see billings to improve in order to be able to drive double-digit revenue growth? Thank you.

Stephen J. Squeri (Chairman and CEO)

Well, those are a lot of questions, Ryan.

Ryan Nash (Managing Director in Equity Research)

"1" is if it were part of a measurement, currenc

Stephen J. Squeri (Chairman and CEO)

But it was good. You actually only asked 1, you just put it in multiple parts.

Ryan Nash (Managing Director in Equity Research)

I forgot the fourth.

Stephen J. Squeri (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, right. Exactly. We'll leave that, we'll leave that one alone. When you look at our model, there are many ways for us to grow revenue. You know, we grow revenue from a billings perspective, we grow revenue from a card fee perspective, and we do grow revenue from a lending perspective. The current billings growth that we have is in line with what our long-term growth aspirations are. Where we are from a billings growth perspective, we feel really good about that. From a fee perspective, and I'd like to point this out, is that the major driver of our fee revenue is actually new card acquisition. It's not raising fees, it's really new card acquisition. Look, we've invested 5...

We're going to invest approximately $5.5 billion this year. We'll probably step that up next year. We're very confident in our card acquisition. As Christophe said, there are a lot of great opportunities out there for us. From a lending perspective, and we've mentioned this multiple times, our book today, we believe, is better than our book was in 2019. You know, we'll continue to lend responsibly, and, you know, our card members have various needs at various points in time. I think it's that model, it's our three-legged stool of revenue, which will continue to provide confidence that we're going to be able to deliver double-digit revenue growth next year.

Christophe Le Caillec (CFO)

Maybe, Ryan, I can add one point on the lending side. As Stephen said, we have, you know, a premium customer base, and we're growing lending of that premium customer base. 70% of the balances are coming from established card members that we know well. You know, those card members we know revolve with, you know, competitors' products, and historically, we under-index on that. We capture a big share of their spend, a smaller share of that lending. What we're doing here is just, you know, deepening the relationship with them and capturing a bigger share of their revolving needs.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is coming from Robert Napoli of William Blair. Please go ahead.

Robert Napoli (Partner and Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you, and congratulations to everyone. Kerri, it's been great working with you and good luck. Question, Stephen, on the SMB business. That's a really important business for you. It's only growing 2%. I think there are large opportunities there, but can you maybe give a little color on what's going on in SMB and your thoughts about SMB as we move into 2024?

Stephen J. Squeri (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, I think, you know, this is probably the second quarter in a row. It's, you know, been low growth. I think a lot of it, a lot of our high growth was really driven by organic growth, and we haven't seen as much organic growth from a small business perspective. I think from an acquisition perspective, we're still very happy about the opportunities that are out there. We're still happy about the, you know, lending opportunities that are out there. I think, you know, small businesses went through a very interesting cycle over the last few years in terms of not having a lot of inventory and then stocking up on inventory. We're still very positive on small business, albeit the last two quarters were relatively slow.

We share, we share your, you know, your perspective that it's still a huge opportunity for us, and it is a, it is a big, you know, it's a big part of our business from a billings perspective. To remind people, our, our small business footprint is across a variety of small businesses, you know, whether it's restaurant and, and retail or, or, or professional services and construction and so forth. We still feel good about it. I, I think that we'll see just, you know, when organic does come back, but we're, we're still very positive on small business.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is coming from Rick Shane of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Rick Shane (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks, everybody, for taking my question, and congratulations, Kerri. We've really enjoyed working with you and Christophe. We are looking forward to more dialogue. I just have one question. There was a comment about raising the reserve rate modestly as we move forward. Obviously, that's not a function of changing economic outlook because you don't know what that will be. I'm assuming it's a mix shift issue. Can you talk about that a little bit in terms of what components are shifting in the mix and the different reserve rates for those products?

Christophe Le Caillec (CFO)

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Their trend, either there is, like, still a bit of normalization going on. If you look at our delinquency rates, they're fairly flat. If you squint a little bit, you're gonna see a couple of basis points increase, and that's effectively what I meant when I said that you should expect that reserve rate to increase a little bit, where there's still a little bit of normalization happening here. As you know well, those delinquency rates and write-off rates are very strong relative to our historical performance and, of course, relative to peers. There's nothing that gives me concern in that comment. It's just to preempt a little bit what we are seeing.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is coming from Don Fandetti of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Don Fandetti (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, good morning. Christophe, on the Basel III endgame, is the message still unchanged? I mean, it seems like that's a pretty big increase in RWAs, and that maybe you might have to ultimately dial back the buybacks at some point. Just wanted to get-

Christophe Le Caillec (CFO)

Yeah

Don Fandetti (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

use numeric values for times

Christophe Le Caillec (CFO)

Yeah. This is, as you know, a complicated set of rules, like, over 1,000 pages. Let me try to summarize it for you and the way we are thinking about Basel III. I think the right starting point is to remind ourselves that first, we generate a lot of capital, ROE, in the 30% range. The second element of the starting point is that although our regulatory capital is at 7%, CET1 at 7%, we actually operate with a target of 10%-11%. That's 300-400 basis points north of the regulatory level. What I meant to say in my comment was to say that that buffer could be consumed by the Basel III rules if they're adopted as currently drafted.

Another way of saying the same thing is that our level of capital today is very healthy, you know, given those rules. I also need to highlight the fact that in the rules themselves, the regulators pose some questions about the applicability of these rules to businesses such as ours, you know, when they reference the charge card, for instance, business. As you know, over 75%-78% of our revenue comes from fees, but those fees are stable, visible, such as card fees that we talked about a bit earlier. We are actively engaged with the regulators to figure out, you know, what's the right thing to do here. We'll see where we land. No one knows, but for now, I don't expect any change to our near-term capital management policies and practices.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is coming from Jeffery Adelson of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Adelson (Executive Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yes, hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to focus a little bit on the spend versus account growth dynamics. It looks like your average spending per card or account is flattening out, and your account growth is finally slowing, a little, you know, more flat sequentially this quarter, even as you continue to add 3 million new accounts or cards a quarter. You know, it came against the backdrop of your marketing a little bit lower this quarter, although it sounds like you're going to be leaning back in next quarter to hit that $5.5. I guess my question is: Are you seeing something that's causing you to drive a little bit slower account growth here, or is there anything going on with attrition or anything with Delta?

Stephen J. Squeri (Chairman and CEO)

No. I think, you know, it becomes down to timing. You know, what happens is quarters happen to cut off on particular days, and that's just the way it is. No, we're committed to the $5.5 billion overall, approximately, of marketing. You saw a slight sequential drop. I think we went under, you know, the 3 million for the first time in a while. You know, we look at account growth as or cards acquired from an overall revenue perspective, but we still see tremendous, tremendous opportunities out there, which is why we sort of signaled here, more than signaled, we said we're going to raise our marketing expense for next year as well. No, we're not seeing anything at all that gives us pause.

We will continue to acquire those cards as long as those opportunities are out there. You will see a higher level of marketing spending in the next quarter.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is coming from Bill Carcache of Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Bill Carcache (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. Good morning, Stephen and Christophe. Welcome to the call.

Stephen J. Squeri (Chairman and CEO)

Morning.

Christophe Le Caillec (CFO)

Morning.

Bill Carcache (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Can you share any initial thoughts on the open banking rule that the CFPB recently proposed? There's a view that, you know, open banking essentially forces banks to hand over the keys to their customer relationships. I was just hoping you could, you know, speak to any opportunities that may present for Amex. Following up on the capital commentary, Christophe, there's a view that you could reduce your Op Risk if you treated your rewards expense as a contra revenue. Any thoughts on that would be great. Thank you.

Stephen J. Squeri (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, look, as far as said now, I think let's just go to the U.K. U.K.'s had open banking for 10 years or so. It's really had no impact on our business, either positively or negatively. I don't really see this as either a big threat or a big opportunity. I think what I'd like to take you back, Bill, to is what product we're actually offering. We're offering a membership model product, basically, which has lots of different components other than just commodity paying. You know, our product has so many more benefits from a security perspective, a fraud perspective, a dispute perspective than an open banking product would have.

I really don't see this as either an opportunity or as a threat to our business, either in the short term or in the long term.

Christophe Le Caillec (CFO)

Yeah.

Stephen J. Squeri (Chairman and CEO)

I will turn the other question over to Christophe.

Christophe Le Caillec (CFO)

to discuss this in detail. When we have more clarity, we'll provide you with a ton of Basel III detail." * Wait, "either an important element". I'll check if "either" could be "here". "You raise here an important element". But the transcript says "either". I'll stick to "either". * Wait, "what the right level of capital here, and not be dependent". This is a bit clunky. Let me re-read. "we need to figure out with regulators what the right level of capital here, and not be dependent upon accounting treatment". It's missing a verb like "is". But I can't add it. * Wait, "So on, on Basel". If I remove "So", I start with "On Basel". * "But, but you raise..." -> "You raise". * "So, so, you know..." -> "You know". * Wai

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is coming from Dominick Gabriele of Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Dominick Gabriele (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Hi, good morning. Pleasure to meet everybody.

Stephen J. Squeri (Chairman and CEO)

Morning.

Dominick Gabriele (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Kerri, thanks so much for all the help. I was just curious on your card member rewards as a % of billed business. It stepped down quite nicely quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year. I was just curious if you're seeing anything in particular on the utilization of rewards recently or any commentary around that. Thank you so much.

Christophe Le Caillec (CFO)

Yeah. Yes, and our, you know, our total VCE, I called out, was lower this quarter at 40%. As you know, Variable Card Member Engagement and rewards is the biggest number there. It's a very large expense base. We're constantly looking at when we do product refreshes, when we launch products. We're looking at ways to make sure that this value proposition works best and we price for this. There's always changes. There's always changes as well in terms of how the card members choose to redeem their points from one quarter to another. As you know, we're also adding constantly new redemption partners. That changed the mix in terms of their weighted average cost per point. There's, at any point in time, a lot of variables that will impact that ratio.

We are very focused on making sure that we have the right ratio versus revenue, and we also have the right value proposition that would be compelling in the marketplace. It's a little bit lower this quarter. You know, I think, you know, we said 42% for the full year because we are seeing, you know, that it's a bit better as well from a full year standpoint. It's still going to be an area of investments for us. It drives a lot of growth as well. That's one of the key reasons why card members sign up for the cards and engage with it. You know, we're gonna keep working on those value propositions and make sure that we have the right balance here.

Stephen J. Squeri (Chairman and CEO)

The only other point I'll add is that, you know, within our value propositions, because of our really premium card base, lots and lots of partners want to work with us and include benefits within.

Christophe Le Caillec (CFO)

Mm-hmm

Stephen J. Squeri (Chairman and CEO)

Our value propositions to reach our Card Members. You know, when you look at the overall value proposition, it's just not rewards-based, it is partner-based, and there are different mechanisms from a funding perspective of how that all works out. That's part and parcel of our value proposition as well.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is coming from Arren Cyganovich of Citi. Please go ahead.

Arren Cyganovich (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks. You continue to outperform on credit, at least, you know, very much relative to your peers and below pre-pandemic levels. You know, what are your thoughts on net charge-offs heading into 2024? Maybe you could touch a little bit on how the seasoning curves are happening for your recent vintages.

Christophe Le Caillec (CFO)

Yeah, yeah. You know, we're not going to give you a lot of details about 2024 on this call. We plan to do that at the beginning of next year when we speak about 2024 guidance. What I can tell you is that the starting point for us of our credit performance and all our credit decisions is the quality of the products and the fact that it attracts, you know, premium Card Members. That's the starting point, right? We have a very talented risk organization. We have a very disciplined execution of our risk decisions, but it starts with the quality of the product, and that's the key differentiator vis-à-vis our peers, and that's what we're focused on.

As you know, we've said this many times on this call, if anything, we are focused even more on the premiumness of the, you know, the portfolio. You know, the new card members, because you're talking about vintages, the new card members we're bringing in, 70% of those consumer card members are joining the franchise on a fee-paying product. That's a big statement to join the franchise. You know, that's what we use to start projecting out. You know, there's still, as I've said before, there's still a little bit of either COVID noise and normalization going on, but we are very pleased with their credit performance that we're seeing. As you pointed out, you know, the gap versus competitors, if anything, is increasing further.

Operator (participant)

Excuse me. Thank you. The next question is coming from Craig Maurer of FT Partners. Please go ahead.

Craig Maurer (Managing Director and Co-Director of Research)

Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions, and congrats, Kerri and Kartik, on your new roles. The net interest yield on Card Member loans saw a nice improvement in the quarter of 50 basis points, quarter-on-quarter, and you're now above Q4 2019. While I understand what rates are doing, the increase was pretty substantial this quarter versus prior quarter. I was wondering how we should expect that to trend. Secondly, given your visibility due to the accounting treatment of net of card fees, how should we expect that to trend over the coming quarters, considering it's decelerated for several quarters in a row? Thank you.

Christophe Le Caillec (CFO)

Yeah, yeah. On their yield, the key thing here, there are many moving parts, right? There are, you know, as you know, in terms of the funding, in terms of their pricing, in terms of their various vintages. The key, the biggest element that is driving that small increase in the yield is the revolve rate. The share, the revolving balances, the interest-bearing balances in our total loan balances is actually increasing a little bit. That's an outcome of our tenured card members rebuilding their balances, which is something we've called out for several quarters now.

I just want to point out again that, you know, most of that growth, i.e., 70%, is coming from tenured card members that we know well and we can underwrite well. That's the key driver behind the yield improvement. When it comes to card fees, you're right, we have good visibility because we amortize those fees over 12 months. We see that trend. You should expect that trend to continue a little bit, i.e., the growth rate to moderate. As I said, a key driver to this is going to be the cycle of product refreshes, and it's also going to be a function of us investing more marketing dollars, bringing on more fee-paying card members, and that dynamic is just going to play out.

You should expect, you know, in the next few quarters, a bit of a moderation there. I need to call out that it's a moderation from a very high level. As we used to say on this call, even during the pandemic, that specific category was still growing, so it's still going to grow strongly in double digits.

Stephen J. Squeri (Chairman and CEO)

If I remove "And so", I'm removing "And" and "So". Both are on the list. If I remove "But", it's on the list. *Wait, let me check the "word-for-word" rule again.* "Preserve every word in its exact order... NEVER remove or alter words unless they fall under the specific exceptions". The exception is "unnecessary starter conjunctions". Is "And so" unnecessary? Yes. Is "But" unnecessary? Yes. Is "And" unnecessary? Yes. *Wait, let me check the "stutters" again.* "when you, when you" "a little bit,

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our final question will come from Mihir Bhatia of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Mihir Bhatia (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, thanks for taking my question and squeezing me in here. Congratulations to Christophe, Kerri, and Kartik. Yeah. I wanted to maybe switch from talking about the card products that, you know, the whole call has been talking about a little bit, and maybe just talk a little bit about the non-card products. I think other loans and receivables is now up over $10 billion in total now. It's obviously been an area where you've spent a lot of time investing in. Maybe just talk a little bit about that, both on the consumer and commercial side. Where are you seeing some of the strongest growth? How do you expect that to trend? How much is that contributing to interest yields and et cetera? Thanks.

Stephen J. Squeri (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Let me sort of just hit from a strategic perspective of what we're trying to do. You know, even at $10 billion, it's still a relatively small, small piece. One of the things we try to do from a small business perspective is to make sure that we can provide a variety of working capital needs to our small business customers. In that case, it can be non-card loans for working capital, it can be shorter-term loans for, you know, up to two years or so forth. I think, you know, part of that was the overall Kabbage acquisition that we did to be able to do that.

having a charge product, and then having working capital loans." Wait, "from having a check, a transaction account". Is it "a check, a transaction account"? Original: "from having a check, a transaction account". I will keep it. *Wait, "And so I think that really, that really fits in."* Original: "And so I think that really, that really fits in." "I think that really fits in." *Wait, "But, you know, that's not the driver of growth for us in, in that segment."* Original: "But, you know, that's not the driver of growth for us in, in that segment." "You know, that's not the driver of growth for us in that segment." *Wait, "From a consumer perspective, what we've continued to try to do is to really grow our organic footprint with our consumers."* Original: "From a consumer perspective, what we've continued to try to do is to really grow our organic footprint with our consumers." This is fin

It started as a charge card, and then we put lending, and then we put Pay Over Time and, you know, Plan It within the product and came up with a savings account and a debit product, and also a small component of personal loans. You know, we've been judicious and careful about how we've gone about that. I think it's an important add to make sure that our customers are not going to our competitors when they need products and services like that. That's the sort of strategic sort of backdrop on why we have that.

Kerri Bernstein (SVP and Head of Investor Relations)

Okay. With that, we will bring the call to an end. Thank you for joining today's call and for your continued interest in American Express. The I.R. team will be available for any follow-up questions. Operator, back to you.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, the webcast replay will be available on our Investor Relations website at ir.americanexpress.com shortly after the call. You can also access a digital replay of the call at 877-660-6853 or 201-612-7415, access code 13740799, after 1:00 P.M. Eastern Time on October 20th through October 27th. That will conclude our conference call for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.