American Express Company

indicating that you have been placed in queue. You may remove 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 would now like to turn the conference over to our host, Head of Investor Relations, Mr. Kartik Ramachandran. 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 discuss. All of these are posted on our website at ir.americanexpress.com. We'll begin today with Steve Squeary, 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.

Thank you, Kartik. And good morning, everybody, and thanks for joining us on a beautiful Friday morning here in the summer. So thank you. We have another strong quarter. Revenues reached a record $17.9 billion, up 9% year-over-year. Earnings per share, $4.08, up 17%, excluding last year's gain from the sale of the Certify. Total card member spending was up 7%, which was consistent with the pattern we've seen this year, while spend in some of the travel categories like airlines and lodging was softer overall. Spending was a quarterly record. Based on our strong performance year to date, we are reaffirming our full-year revenue growth and EPS guidance that we provided in January. Last month, we received the results of the Fed's annual CCAR process, which set our preliminary stress capital buffer requirement at the lowest permissible level of 2.5%. The results, once again, demonstrated that we had the lowest projected credit card loss and highest profitability rates under the Fed's stress test among all banks subject to CCAR. These results were a testament to the earnings power of our resilient business model and our strong capital position. Looking ahead, we're very excited about the upcoming refresh of our U.S. Consumer and Business Platinum cards this fall. The competition for premium customers, while always intense, has been especially heated for over a decade, and it's been a very good thing for our customers, for the category, and for us. In fact, the past decade has been one of the very best in terms of growing our premium card portfolios and scaling our card member base. As the industry leader in premium cards, we benefit from the strong interest in the category. The total addressable market is growing at a healthy rate globally, driven by several factors, including our own value proposition innovations, the investments of competitors, and generational shifts in the appeal of premium products. As a result, the basis of competition has shifted, especially among affluent consumers, away from cashback and no-fee products, and towards partner-aided value, access, experiences, and superior customer service, where we do excel. We believe we can continue to lead in this space as the category and competitive interests continue to grow, but let me tell you why. To start with, we've led the premium card category for over 40 years. We achieved that position by creating a multifaceted membership-focused business model, which includes a wide range of assets that set us apart, and when taken together, are very difficult to replicate. To build on our success, we've increased our focus on the premium space over the last several years, strategically invested in refreshing our products regularly all around the world. Our refresh strategy focuses on enriching our value propositions, with more benefits and offerings in areas that our customers value most, at a price point that delivers outstanding value. A key element of this strategy is our ability to attract a growing number of premier partners who fund offerings to gain access to our large-scale, high-spending customer base. Beyond the individual product value propositions, we're also constantly involving our suite of experiences and benefits that set the competitive standards. giving our card member access to over 27,000 of the most sought-after restaurants, wineries, and other venues through Resientop, the largest airport lounge network in the industry, which includes 30 proprietary Centurion lounges today, with more on the way, as well as access to all Delco lounges, exclusive experiences across sports, fashion, and entertainment, and a wide range of benefits at over 2,600 premium hotels and resorts worldwide. This strategy has worked especially well for us, For example, in each of the recent refreshes we've done for our U.S. consumer gold, delta, and Hilton cards over the last two years, customer demand has increased, driving double-digit account growth. Revenue growth in each of the three portfolios is up over 30%, with card fee revenues up at least 60%. And spend retention remains very high at 98%, and we've seen no meaningful change after the refreshes. Additionally, the high credit quality of the new customers we're bringing in has helped us widen the gap between our credit metrics and the rest of the industry as we look ahead to our us platinum launches you can expect to see this same formula providing the best premium experience to card members with more differentiated benefits and more world-class partners joining us to offer card members more value that substantially exceeds the annual fee longer term When you combine our proven product refresh strategy with our global premium customer base at scale, our network of world-class partners, our lifestyle-orientated membership-defined brand, and an addressable market that is growing at a healthy annual rate globally, especially in key areas where we're focused on the premium sector and younger consumers, these are all the reasons why we believe we have a long runway for growth and can sustain our momentum and our leadership in the premium space going forward. I'll now turn it over to Christoph to provide more detail on the second quarter results.