American Express Company (Amex) is an American bank holding company and multinational financial services corporation that specializes in payment cards. It is headquartered at 200 Vesey Street, also known as American Express Tower, in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan; in 2026, the company announced that it would develop and be the sole occupant of the new 2 World Trade Center skyscraper in the nearby World Trade Center complex.
Amex is the fourth-largest card network globally based on purchase volume, behind China UnionPay, Visa, and Mastercard. 141.2 million Amex cards were in force worldwide as of December 31, 2023, with an average annual spend per card member of US$24,059. That year, Amex handled over $1.7 trillion in purchase volume on its network. Amex is the 16th largest US bank, with a total of US$270 billion in assets or 1.1% of all assets insured by the FDIC. It is ranked 58th on the Fortune 500 and 28th on the list of the most valuable brands by Forbes. In 2023, it was ranked 63rd in the Forbes Global 2000. American Express National Bank is a direct bank owned by Amex.
Founded in 1850 as a freight forwarding company, Amex introduced financial and travel services during the early 1900s. It developed its first paper charge card in 1958, gold card in 1966, green card in 1969, platinum card in 1984, and Centurion Card in 1999. The "Don't Leave Home Without It" advertising campaign was introduced in 1975 and renewed in 2005. In the 1980s, Amex acquired and then divested a stake in Shearson. In the 1990s, it stopped reducing interchange fees for merchants who exclusively accepted Amex cards and expanded market share through targeted marketing campaigns. Amex converted to a bank holding company during the 2008 financial crisis. Amex began operating airport lounges in 2013, offering access to certain cardholders.
Amex had a 9% worldwide market share by transaction volume in 2023. While American Express credit cards are accepted at 99% of U.S. merchants that accept credit cards, they are less accepted in Europe and Asia. American Express offers various types of cards including travel and dining cards, everyday spending points cards, and cash back cards. Each category has several card options with different benefits and reward structures. High-profile cards like the Green, Gold, and Platinum cards cater to frequent travelers and diners with perks tailored to these activities.
History Early history
In 1850, American Express was started as a freight forwarding company in Buffalo, New York. It was founded as a joint-stock corporation by the merger of the express delivery companies owned by Henry Wells (Wells & Company), William G. Fargo (Livingston, Fargo & Company), and John Warren Butterfield (Butterfield, Wasson & Company). Wells and Fargo also started Wells Fargo & Co. in 1852 when Butterfield and other directors objected to the proposal that American Express extend its operations to California.
American Express buildings 1850 to 1986
Founded in Buffalo in 1850, American Express opened its first headquarters in New York City at 10 Wall Street, where its predecessor Wells & Company had been located. The company moved to 62 Broadway in 1853. In 1854, it purchased a lot on Vesey Street to site horse stables for its horse-drawn wagons.
American Express built its first company-owned headquarters at the intersection of Jay Street and Hudson Street, which opened in 1858. It was a marble Italianate palazzo at 55–61 Hudson Street, which had a busy freight depot on the ground story with a spur line from the Hudson River Railroad. A stable was constructed in 1867, five blocks north at 4–8 Hubert Street; in 1898 architect Edward H. Kendall was hired to extend the stables, and he added the American Express bulldog/watchdog logo in terracotta relief on both the Laight and Hubert Street facades of the expanded building.
The company prospered sufficiently that headquarters were moved in 1874 from the wholesale shipping district to the budding Financial District and into rented offices in two five-story brownstone commercial buildings at 63 and 65 Broadway that were owned by the Harmony family. In 1880, American Express built a new warehouse behind the Broadway Building at 46 Trinity Place. The designer is unknown, but it has a façade of brick arches that are reminiscent of pre-skyscraper New York. American Express has long been out of this building, but it still bears a terracotta seal with the American Express bulldog logo. By 1903, the company had assets of some $28 million, second only to the National City Bank of New York among financial institutions in the city. To reflect this, the company purchased the Broadway buildings and site.
Following the retirement of William Fargo's brother J. C. Fargo (1829–1915) in 1914, an aggressive new president, George Chadbourne Taylor (1868–1923) was elected. He had worked his way up through the company over the previous 30 years, and decided to build a new headquarters. The old buildings, dubbed by The New York Times as "among the ancient landmarks" of lower Broadway, had become inadequate for such a rapidly expanding concern. After some delays due to the First World War, the 21-story neo-classical American Express Co. Building was constructed in 1916–17 to the design of J. Lawrence Aspinwall, of the firm of Renwick, Aspinwall & Tucker, the successor to the architectural practice of James Renwick Jr. The building consolidated the two lots of the former buildings with a single address: 65 Broadway. This building was part of the "Express Row" section of lower Broadway at the time. The building completed the continuous masonry wall of its block-front and assisted in transforming Broadway into the "canyon" of neo-classical masonry office towers familiar to this day. After moving to newly purchased international headquarters at 2 New York Plaza in 1975, where it remained until 1986, American Express sold 65 Broadway to the American Bureau of Shipping in 1977, while still retaining travel services on the ground floor of that building.
National expansion 1874–1918 For approximately two decades from its founding in 1850, American Express enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the express transport of goods, currency, and securities throughout New York State.
Following its move to larger headquarters at 63 and 65 Broadway in 1874, the company extended its reach nationwide by arranging affiliations with other express companies such as Wells Fargo, railroads, and steamship companies. In 1882, American Express started its expansion in the area of financial services by launching a money order business. Sometime between 1888 and 1890, J. C. Fargo took a trip to Europe and returned frustrated and infuriated. Despite the fact that he was president of American Express and that he carried with him traditional letters of credit, he found it difficult to obtain cash anywhere except in major cities. Fargo went to Marcellus Flemming Berry and asked him to create a better solution than the letter of credit. Berry introduced the American Express Travelers Cheque which was launched in 1891 in denominations of $10, $20, $50, and $100.
American Express Travelers Cheques established the company as a truly international institution. In 1914, at the onset of World War I, American Express was among the few companies to honor the letters of credit, traveller's cheques, and money orders held by Americans stranded in Europe. The British government appointed American Express as its official agent at the beginning of World War I. The company delivered letters, money, and relief parcels to British prisoners of war. Its employees went into camps to cash drafts for both British and French prisoners and arranged for them to receive money from home. By the end of the war American Express was delivering 150 tons of parcels per day to prisoners in six countries.
In 1915, American Express established a travel division and soon established its first travel agency.
End of railroad express business in 1918 American Express was one of the monopolies that President Theodore Roosevelt had the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) investigate during his administration (1901–1909). The interest of the ICC was drawn to its strict control of the railroad express business. However, the solution did not come immediately to hand. The solution to this problem came as a coincidence to other problems during World War I. During the winter of 1917, the United States suffered a severe coal shortage and on December 26 President Woodrow Wilson commandeered the railroads on behalf of the United States government to move federal troops, their supplies, and coal. Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo was assigned the task of consolidating the railway lines for the war effort. All contracts between express companies and railroads were nullified and McAdoo proposed that all existing express companies be consolidated into a single company to serve the country's needs. This ended American Express's express business and removed them from the ICC's interest. The result was that a new company called the American Railway Express Company formed in July 1918.Shaw, Robbert B. (July 1979). "Decline and Decay of REA". Trains. Vol. 39, no. 9. A.C. Kalmbach.Roseman, V.S. (1993). Railway Express - An Overview (2nd ed.). Rocky Mountain Pub. ISBN 0-9612692-5-1. The new entity took custody of all the pooled equipment and property of existing express companies (the largest share of which, 40%, came from American Express, who had owned the rights to the express business over of railroad lines, and had 10,000 offices, with over 30,000 employees.
1920s–1970s American Express executives discussed the possibility of launching a travel charge card as early as 1946, but it was not until Diners Club launched a card in March 1950, that American Express began to seriously consider the possibility. At the end of 1957, under American Express CEO Ralph Reed the company entered the business and by the launch date of October 1, 1958, public interest had become so significant that 250,000 cards were issued prior to the official launch date. The card was launched with an annual fee of $6, $1 higher than Diners Club, to be seen as a premium product. The first cards were made of paper, with the account number and card member's name typed. In 1959, American Express became the first major issuer to introduce embossed plastic cards.
In 1960, Howard L. Clark became president and CEO of the company.
In 1966, American Express introduced the Gold Card for "big-spending members".
In 1977, James D. Robinson III became chairman and CEO of the company.
In 1979, American Express acquired 50% of the cable subsidiary of Warner Communications, forming Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, for $175 million in cash and short-term notes. It owned two-thirds of Qube, an experimental two-way cable TV service, along with MTV, Nickelodeon, and The Movie Channel. The venture was unprofitable, and, in 1985, Amex sold its 50% interest back to Warner Communications for $450 million.
1980s In the 1980s, American Express embarked on an effort to become a financial services holding company and made several acquisitions, creating an investment banking arm. In June 1981 it acquired Sanford I. Weill's Shearson Loeb Rhoades, which at the time was Wall Street's second-largest brokerage firm after Merrill Lynch, to form Shearson/American Express. Shearson became an independent subsidiary of American Express, retaining its own management and board of directors, and American Express operated as four principal units: Travel Related Services, Fireman's Fund Insurance Companies, the American Express International Banking Corporation, and Shearson Loeb Rhoades Inc.