American Express (AmEx) has registered a net income of $1.7bn in Q4 2019. This is a decrease of 16% from the previous year’s figure of $2bn.

Higher card fee income drives revenue growth

Consolidated total revenues net of interest expense for the three-month period ended 31 December 2019 stood at $11.4bn, a 9% rise from $10.5bn last year.

The firm attributed the rise to growth in fee, spend and lend revenues.

Other highlights

Consolidated expenses increased 9% to $8.4bn from $7.7bn. This was said to be due to higher card member spending and use of card benefits, which resulted in rise in rewards and expenses related to customer engagement.

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Consolidated provisions for losses increased 7% to $1bn from $954m over the period.

AmEx chairman and CEO Stephen Squeri said: “We once again delivered steady, consistent performance in the fourth quarter, marking our 10th straight quarter of FX-adjusted revenue growth at or above 8 percent.”

“During 2019, we added 11.5 million new proprietary cards and continued to deliver solid billings growth. Almost 70 percent of our new Card Members are choosing our fee-based products, helping to drive card fee revenue growth of 17 percent,” Squeri noted.

Positive outlook for 2020

Highlighting his outlook for this year, Squeri added: “For 2020, we expect revenue growth in the range of 8 to 10 percent on an FX-adjusted basis and earnings of $8.85 – $9.25 per share.”