American Express Company

• Date Founded: 1850
• Industry: Banking, Financial Services
• Corporate Headquarters: New York City, New York
• Type: Public

The American Express Company, also known as Amex, is an American payments and travel company, headquartered in New York City. The company offers products and services, including charge and credit card products and travel-related services, to consumers and businesses around the world. Amex’s operations are structured around four reportable segments: US Consumer Services (USCS), Commercial Services (CS), International Card Services (ICS), and Global Merchant and Network Services (GMNS).

The USCS offers a wide variety of card products and services to consumers and small businesses in the United States and travel services to card members and other customers. The operations of the ICS segment include proprietary consumer and small business cards outside the United States. It also operates a coalition loyalty business in various countries. The ICS’s offerings include expense management services to companies and organizations globally, through its global corporate payments and global business travel businesses. The GMNS segment operates a global payments network that processes and settles proprietary and non-proprietary card transactions and also provides point-of-sale products, multi-channel marketing programs and capabilities, services, and data.

American Express reported revenue for the fiscal year ending on December 31, 2025, of $72.2 billion. It was ranked seventy-third on Forbes’s 2023 Best Employers for Diversity. It was also listed among Forbes’s Best Brands for Social Impact. In 2023, American Express employed around 75,000 people worldwide.

History

American Express was founded as an express mail business in Buffalo, New York, in 1850, with the merger of three express mail companies: Wells & Company, Livingston, Fargo & Company, and Wells, Butterfield & Company to form the joint stock company.

The US Postal Service of the time was slow, expensive, and patchy, and was not able to meet the demands of the growing nation. Express companies employed intrepid expressmen who rode horseback or drove stagecoaches that thundered across the land to fill the void. The companies transported correspondence, parcels, freight, gold and currency, and other goods from eastern cities to the western frontier. American Express soon established a reputation for itself as among the best in the industry. Early on, American Express was able to gain the trust and confidence of banks, delivering stock certificates, currency, and other financial instruments—freight which was small but more profitable than bulkier items.

Drawing on this connection with the financial services industry, the company pared down its freight forwarding operations and, in 1882, launched its money order business. Though the US Postal Service had introduced the money order in 1864, it had a serious flaw: its face value could be altered without detection. Marcellus Berry, an American Express employee, designed a safer money order. Furthermore, it was also more easily available than the postal money order. The money order provided a new source of revenue to American Express, with more than 250,000 issued in the first year.

In 1891, American Express introduced the first traveler’s cheque and, within ten years, its sales revenue from the instrument exceeded $6 million annually.

American Express entered the travel business in 1915. The company was already providing various services to travelers, from supplying tickets for their European tours to forwarding their baggage and packages.

American Express issued its first charge card on October 1, 1958, eight years after Diners Club issued its charge card in 1950. A charge card differs from a credit card in that charge cards have to be paid in full each month and do not allow any outstanding balance. In order to position its card as the premium charge card, its card was offered for an annual fee of $6, $1 more than the Diners Club card. The strategy worked well, and in five years, more than a million people were carrying Amex charge cards, and over 85,000 merchants across the globe accepted it for payment. In 1987, Amex issued its first credit card, the Optima, which allowed customers to carry forward a balance.

In its early days, as an express mail service, American Express used the image of a watchdog as its logo to symbolize the values of trust, security, vigilance, and service. The logo was particularly apt for the business in view of the important attributes of a successful mail service. The logo on the company’s cards, adopted in 1958, is described as a gladiator.

In 2010, Amex launched Small Business Saturday, an American shopping event held on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping period of the year. It was first observed in Roslindale Village, Massachusetts, on November 27, 2010, as a brick-and-mortar small business event as a protest against Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which are big-box retail and e-commerce events. Small Business Saturday seeks to support small, local businesses. In 2011, the day was officially recognized by the US Senate.

The traditional banking system shuts out nearly 70 million Americans, leaving many out of the financial options available to the rest of America. In 2010, American Express launched the Serve and Bluebird cards in a bid to serve such consumers and offer them convenient, low-cost options for managing and saving money. The move marked a departure from the company’s traditional focus on wealthy, upmarket sections of society. With Serve cards, consumers, including those with weak credit, can load cash and spend it in stores or online, and also make payments to each other. However, in January 2016, Amex shut down many Bluebird and Save accounts with no notice, in a move apparently aimed at curbing manufactured spending. Manufactured spending is the practice of using gift cards, money orders, and other items equivalent to cash with a credit card that rewards miles or points for purchases. Points or miles are earned for the purchases, and the funds are liquidated to pay off the credit card.

In 2014, American Express, as part of its commitment to corporate responsibility, contributed $32.4 million in over 300 grants to nonprofit organizations around the world in its priority giving areas of leadership, historic preservation, and community service.

In the 2020s, the company’s corporate social responsibility goals included supporting small businesses owned by underrepresented and economically vulnerable individuals, improving climate conservation efforts, and investing in training leaders. In 2021, American Express announced its goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2035. It also introduced a Carbon Footprint Dashboard for businesses to track their sustainability impact. Additionally, the company began making some credit cards from recycled plastic and increased its digital and contactless payment capabilities, introducing mobile payments, virtual cards, and integrations with Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other fintech platforms. After acquiring the fintech company Kabbage in 2020, Amex rebranded the company as American Express Business Blueprint. This business segment aimed to offer small businesses lines of credit, cash flows, and other financial tools.

In the 2020s, American Express encountered several costly lawsuits. In 2023, the company agreed to pay a $15 million settlement related to its sales practices. The settlement addressed claims of misrepresenting card benefits and fees to small business customers. In January 2025, American Express agreed to pay around $230 million to settle criminal and civil investigations into alleged deceptive sales practices related to credit card and wire transfer products sold to small business customers.

Bibliography

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“American Express Reports Full-Year and Fourth-Quarter 2025 Financial Results.” American Express Company, 30 Jan. 2026, ir.americanexpress.com/news/investor-relations-news/investor-relations-news-details/2026/American-Express-Reports-Full-Year-and-Fourth-Quarter-2025-Financial-Results/default.aspx. Accessed 19 May 2026.

“American Express.” Smithsonian National Postal Museum, postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/america%E2%80%99s-mailing-industry-industry-segments-direct-marketing-advertising-agencies-and-6. Accessed 19 May 2026.

“Corporate Sustainability.” American Express, www.americanexpress.com/en-us/company/corporate-sustainability. Accessed 19 May 2026.

Grossman, Peter Z. American Express: The Unofficial History of the People Who Built the Great Financial Empire. Crown Publishers, 1987.

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