American Express Company

yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star, then two. If you are 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 will now turn the conference over to our host, Head of Investor Relations, Mr. Kartik Ramchandran. Thank you. Please go ahead.

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 discussed. All of these are posted on our website at ir.americanexpress.com. We'll begin today with Steve Squirey, Chairman and CEO, who will start with some remarks about the company's progress and results. And then Christophe Lecayac, 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 Steve and Christoph. With that, let me turn it over to Steve.

Good morning, and thanks for joining us. 2023 was another strong year for American Express. We delivered record revenues of $61 billion for the year, up 15% on an FX-adjusted basis, and we had record net income of over $8 billion, with earnings per share of $11.21. In the fourth quarter, we continued to drive strong customer engagement and demand for our premium products. We had solid growth in billings, strong new account acquisitions, and continued strength in credit quality, which remains the best in the industry. As a result, we achieved fourth quarter revenues of nearly $16 billion, which was another quarterly record, and EPS was $2.62. Christoph will provide detail on our quarterly results, But I would like to take a step back to talk about what we've accomplished over the last two years and tell you why I'm feeling good about where we are today and why I'm confident in our future. Coming out of the COVID pandemic in January of 2022, we saw an opportunity to accelerate our growth and we set an aspiration to sustain growth over the longer term at levels that were higher than what we were achieving prior to the pandemic. At that time, we laid out a growth plan with the objective of positioning the company to be able to deliver on our aspiration of driving annual revenue growth of 10% plus and mid-teens EPS growth over the long term. In executing the plan, we focused on listening to our customers and understanding their needs, and we invested in innovating our value propositions as well as uplifting our marketing and technology capabilities and backing our colleagues to meet those needs. Looking back over the two years since we announced the growth plan, I'm pleased to say that we achieved what we set out to do. And in fact, we're ahead of where we thought we'd be on our journey, thanks to the millions of premium customers we have around the world and the American Express colleagues who support them. Today we are a larger and stronger company. Since 2021, We've delivered record annual revenues, increasing the scale of our business by over 40% in just two years, from $42 billion to $61 billion in annual revenues. Annual card spending over this period has increased 37% on an FX-adjusted basis to a record $1.5 trillion. We've added about 25 million new proprietary card accounts over the last two years, and over 70% of these new accounts are coming into the franchise on fee-based products. With the growth in new accounts we've seen over the past few years, we now have a total of over 140 million cards running on our global network. Our focus on continuously innovating our value propositions to meet the needs of our customers is driving increased brand relevance across generations including millennial and Gen Z consumers. These customers represent over 60% of the new consumer accounts we acquired globally in 2023 and 75% of new consumer platinum and gold accounts acquired in the US came from this cohort. At the same time, retention continues to be very high and our credit metrics remain strong and best in class. These strong results reflect the success of our strategic investments we've made in our business along with the tremendous earnings power of our business model. Looking ahead, let me tell you why I feel really good about our future prospects. We have a business model that is delivering premium performance, and we have strong momentum which is driven by four key features of our model that differentiate us from the competition and are difficult to replicate. First, our economic construct. has a set of diversified revenue sources that include card fees, spending, and best-in-class lending, with our subscription-like card fees being a core and fast-growing component of our revenue mix. We have a singular focus on premium customers and superior innovative value propositions. Our premium customers are high spending, loyal, and drive our strong credit performance. We have a large and growing partnership ecosystem that expands our brand value to card members and merchant partners around the world. And we have a global brand and a servicing ethos that truly sets us apart. Our business model provides us with strong competitive advantages, and the way we've been able to leverage the model's unique elements and execute our strategy has strengthened those advantages. giving us the runway for continuing our momentum across generations, geographies, and both our consumer and small business customers. The power of our business model, combined with the global scale of our premium customer base, the dedication and focus of our talented colleagues, and the attractiveness of the many growth opportunities we see ahead are the key reasons why I'm confident in our ability to continue on our growth plan. and it's why going forward we'll remain focused on our long-term aspiration of delivering annual revenue growth of 10% plus and mid-teens EPS growth. We believe this aspiration is the right one and we aim to achieve it every year. However, we manage the company for the long term and we anticipate there'll be a range of potential outcomes in any given year due to a variety of factors such as external environment and actions we might take that we decide are best for the business. Looking at this year, The continued momentum we've seen in the business as we've executed our strategy gives us confidence in our guidance for 2024, which is in line with our long term aspiration. For the year, we expect to deliver annual revenue growth between 9 and 11% and full year EPS of 1265 to 1315. In addition, We plan to increase our quarterly dividend on common shares outstanding to 70 cents a share, up from 60 cents, beginning with the first quarter 2024 dividend declaration. This represents more than a 60% increase in the dividend from when we introduced our growth plan in January of 2022. As always, we will continue to run our business for the long term, and we'll do that by listening to our customers and meeting their needs through innovative, unique value propositions and exceptional service that reflects our brand built on trust and security, delivered and supported by a world-class colleague base. In keeping our focus on backing our customers and our colleagues, we are confident that we will continue to deliver strong growth on a sustainable basis over the long term. Thank you, and let me now turn it over to Christoph.