American Express Co Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Sanjay Sakhrani - Keefe Bruyette & Woods Inc - Analyst : Thank you. Good morning. Steve, Christophe, I know Billed Business trends have been pretty resilient in the face of this uncertainty on the macro side. I'm just curious how you guys are planning for maybe just the intermediate term on spending trends. I assume it's stable, but what gets things going? I know SMB's been sort of the hardest hit, airlines spend as well. And if I could just ask on that same vein on SMB, maybe you could just address that Amazon portfolio loss and how we should think about how that plays into SMB. Thanks.

Question: Ryan M. Nash - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : Good morning, everyone. So, Steve, you spent a decent amount of time talking about the refresh of the US Platinum that's coming in the fall. We obviously had a refresh from Chase, Citi is coming out with the new card, obviously, COF coming out after that part of the market. Now I know that it's always competitive, but how do you think about the risk of too many players going after the same customer? Many of them are copying your value proposition and inevitably what do you think this means for pricing power over time? Thank you.

Question: Mark DeVries - Deutsche Bank AG - Analyst : Yeah. Thanks. I had a related question on the upcoming Platinum refresh. I know you're not going to preview it now, but I was just wondering if you could just comment qualitatively. Should we expect the same type of meaningful step up in added value relative to the fee that we've seen in past refreshes? And then also, how do you just think about the risk that as you do that, you're asking more of the customer -- to both track what all those incremental sources of value and engage more deeply to justify the added step up in fee.

Question: Donald Fandetti - Wells Fargo Securities LLC - Analyst : Yes. Steve, can you talk a little bit about International in terms of your acceptance, growth and how you're tracking versus your targets and maybe a bit on the competitive dynamics. I think you generally felt like it's less competitive internationally.

Question: Erika Najarian - UBS Equities - Analyst : Hi. Good morning. I thought I'd ask the question that I've been getting and it's almost that you've become a victim of your success a little bit. Given your premium valuation and your previous performance, it feels like there's a bearish case out there, building on the stock. Meaning like you've REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. JULY 18, 2025 / 12:30PM, AXP.N - Q2 2025 American Express Co Earnings Call raised the bar on yourself. So, what's next? And I guess the question that I have here is, how do you address that? You talked a little bit, Steve, about the spend, a little bit of slowdown in airline spend, a little bit of slowdown in lodging. But obviously, you also have this Platinum refresh. So, as you think about maybe spend not accelerating, how does American Express continue to deliver this 8% to 10% revenue growth, continued consistency in Billed Businesses perhaps in an environment where the macro -- the underlying spend is not necessarily accelerating, and like Ryan said, all of a sudden, we have fierce competition, even fiercer competition among your peers for your natural client base.

Question: Richard Shane - JPMorgan Chase & Co - Analyst : Thanks for taking my questions this morning. I just want to follow up on Christophe's point about the timing of revenues and expenses associated with the refresh. The revenue explanation was very helpful. Can you talk about the timing of expenses associated with it? Have you pulled some of that forward in anticipation or should we see a step function over the next year or two consistent with what you're describing on the revenue side? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. JULY 18, 2025 / 12:30PM, AXP.N - Q2 2025 American Express Co Earnings Call

Question: Jeffrey Adelson - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Hey, good morning, Steve and Christophe. Just wanted to focus on the airline lounges. Obviously, that's a really important part of the Amex offering, but I guess longer term as you continue to put up this really robust growth in Card Members, how do you navigate some of the concerns about lounge access and overcrowding? Is that something you'll maybe to look to address in the next round of refresh? And we've continued seemingly to see a step up in competition from the likes of Chase and Capital One with their own build out, and I think there's been more of a focus from the airlines lately to build their own offering or enhance their own offering. So, I guess how do you think about navigating that competition longer term and just maybe addressing the concern of overcrowding? Thanks.

Question: Brian Foran - Truist Securities - Analyst : Hey. Good morning, guys. So, I want to ask about one other pushback I keep getting on the stock lately, and before I do, these slides you're adding, like slide 12 and 9, I think 16, addressing the investor issues head on and getting that next level of detail, I really appreciate it. They're great. So, I want to give that context to that I think you guys have been really open and kind of sharing your thought process on these key pushbacks. So, the other one I get is if you do this walk, spend volumes plus 7%, but then discount is a little lower plus 5%, and then if you back out rewards to do discount -- with rewards as a contrast, it's like plus 1% to 2%, and then some people are even backing out new account contribution and saying like, well, discount net of rewards, net of new accounts is actually slight negative. And I know that's like net of eight things and your actual revenue is growing. But maybe you could just speak to any part of that dynamic for investors who are focused on the discount revenue being a little lower, the discount revenue net of rewards being a little lower still, how would you think about that? Is that a valid concern or is that a wrong path to go down?

Question: Moshe Orenbuch - TD Cowen - Analyst : Great. Thanks, and apologies for going back to the competition kind of issue, but if you put together, the questions from a couple of people and Steve your answers to them. I guess what strikes me is that this may be the first time that you're doing this US Platinum refresh kind of into the teeth of a competitive environment, and you've got crosscurrents. Obviously, you have in the past benefited from some of the advertising and marketing of your competitors and at the same time there is this idea of competing for a limited number of people. So, is there a way to just talk REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. JULY 18, 2025 / 12:30PM, AXP.N - Q2 2025 American Express Co Earnings Call about how you think it's going to play out this time versus others, in terms of what you are expecting? Any things that you're thinking about that would differentiate your set of product refreshes from what you've seen from those competitors. Thanks.

Question: Mihir Bhatia - Bank of America - Analyst : Hi. Thank you for taking my question. So, it is another question on this competition and premium card space. But really what I would like to focus maybe a little bit on is you've talked about how the customer value propositions have changed and evolved. But how has this impacted the acquisition strategies? Is it becoming more expensive to attract these fee-paying customers? Is the acquisition mix changing? And really putting it all together at the end of the day, are returns in the premium card space stable? Increasing? Decreasing? Because like yes, value propositions are increasing, but fees are increasing, usage is increasing. So, I'm just trying to get a sense of that. Thank you.

Question: Terry Ma - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Hi. Thank you. Good morning. I just wanted to ask about net card fee growth. It continues to be strong, coming in at 20% year-over-year this quarter. As we think about the go forward, should the Platinum refresh be kind of additive to that growth or just kind of sustain it as you lap some of the refreshes from last year. Thank you.

Question: Craig Maurer - FT Partners - Analyst : Yeah. Hi. Thanks. I wanted to -- competition aside and Amex's right to win aside, I wanted to ask about how perhaps the mix of new acquisition is changing. And the reason why I'm asking is does the slowdown in travel spend put at risk the fantastic new acquisition channels you have with your co-brand partners like Marriott and Delta? Do we have to think about that at all when it comes to net new card growth? And just secondly, just quickly on the EPS guide. You had nice outperformance in EPS. But am I just reading it correctly that the projected increase in VCE spend as a percentage of revenue in the back half of the year, which seems to be related at least in part to the Platinum refresh is what's keeping you from raising the range? Thanks.

Question: Cris Kennedy - William Blair & Company - Analyst : Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Just wanted to change the topic a little bit. You have the announcement with Coinbase and Amex Ventures, there's a lot of investing in the space. Can you just give your latest views on stablecoin and implementing blockchain technology into your tech stack?