Amex: Living the American Dream
Payment schemes explained: gtnews invited American Express to describe its structured products and processes. The American Express Company is a diversified worldwide travel, financial and network services company founded in 1850. It provides charge and credit cards, travellers cheques, travel, financial planning, investment products, insurance and international banking to consumers, small businesses and corporations.
American Express is the company that first introduced travellers cheques and led the way in terms of plastic payment. Its brand, 154 years old this year, is recognised the world over by individuals and corporations that use its products and services to help them manage their lives, or their business.
Today, American Express has more than 60 million cards in circulation worldwide, and in 2003 alone US$352.2bn was spent using American Express plastic.
In 2003, the company reported an income of US$3bn in 2003, up 12 per cent on the previous year created through its offering of travel and financial services.
American Express has achieved the status of a global brand. The brand’s products and services are available in more than 200 countries and the company employs over 70,000 staff around the world.
The American Express Corporate Card is a payment tool that offers specific benefits to both employee and company. Detailed billing statements and management information enable companies to monitor expenditure and identify purchasing and process savings.
The Corporate Card product offers a variety of settlement options to meet the needs and preferences of each company. It is also a guarantee of global support. Whatever the problem while on business, the Corporate Card will give you access to just the help you need.
Through its Global Corporate Services group, American Express provides expense management services to more than 100,000 firms worldwide through its Corporate Travel, Corporate Card and Corporate Purchasing Card products. It is a unit of American Express Travel Related Services Company Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Express Company and it is both the leading issuer of commercial cards and the largest corporate travel management company in the US, serving nearly 70 per cent of the Fortune 500, along with tens of thousands of mid-sized companies.
American Express offers a comprehensive range of card data reports that gives companies access to management information at a granular level and summarizes spending at the global, regional and local level across all T&E categories, plus a wide variety of tailored reports for each industry sector. For airline spend, for example, American Express offers reports on spending by airline or by route. For hotel spend, companies can see their spend by their preferred hotel chains or properties. Similar reports are available on car rental spend.
American Express @ Work is a web-based interactive reporting tool that helps companies improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their entire expense management programme.
For global negotiations, clients can tap into a global data repository, which houses their spend data from nearly 80 countries. Clients in 23 countries can use American Express @ Work to view this global data online. As both the card issuer and merchant network, American Express uses its global network to deliver comprehensive, accurate and detailed data.
The card information – both global and regional – has helped negotiate deals that pare domestic and international airfares, worldwide lodging and car rental rates significantly, as well as improving volume to preferred vendors.
For those companies that do not have the purchasing power to negotiate one to one deals with suppliers, American Express has developed a savings programme, called Corporate Savings Plus. The programme is designed to drive usage of the Corporate Card and promote compliance, while delivering savings to medium sized companies of up to 20 per cent on T&E costs (air travel, hotel, car hire, mobile phone bills) and up to 60 per cent on everyday office supplies.
Another area of process saving is in expense reporting. American Express offers automated card data feeds for pre-population of employees expense vouchers, replacing manually issued cash advances with card-based cash advances.
American Express has a very strong membership rewards programme, for all its card members. It is an optional programme, that maximizes control through higher compliance on the card and motivates the card member to pay/reconcile in a more timely manner.
American Express Corporate Purchasing Solutions (CPS) provides large and middle market companies with tools to better manage their everyday spending. CPS is used by corporations to buy everyday goods and services, such as office supplies and equipment, in 24 markets around the world. It is a paperless payment system that cuts the high administration costs, such as manpower, stationery etc. associated with purchases.
American Express continues to enjoy an international reputation for prestige and excellence as a result of its commitment to constant innovation to drive the brand forward. This innovative spirit, which pioneered the original Charge Card in 1963, has witnessed American Express consistently develop ground breaking products to suit consumer spending needs. Despite many imitators, American Express distinguishes itself in a competitive market place by combining first class products with superior customer service.