American Express is to cut about 3,500 jobs, around 5 per cent of its 78,000-strong global workforce, as the credit card company seeks to offset rising costs.
Steve Squeri, the company’s chief executive, said the cuts were part of an effort to make American Express more efficient and to speed up decision making across the business. He said the company needed to become more “agile and efficient”.
It remains unclear where the cuts will fall within the global workforce. American Express employs 1,500 people at its London office, and the company has not said whether UK roles are among those affected.
The cuts were announced alongside third-quarter results on Friday that beat estimates. American Express reported net income of $3.7bn for the three months to the end of September, up from $2.9bn a year earlier, according to its third-quarter earnings release. Revenue net of interest expense rose 9 per cent to a record $20.1bn.
Costs grew at the same pace. Consolidated expenses climbed about 9 per cent to $14.5bn (£10.9bn) in the quarter. The company said the increase was driven primarily by higher customer engagement costs linked to increased card member spending and a refresh of its US Platinum Card, partly offset by lower operating expenses.
The quarter’s figures included a $336m pre-tax restructuring charge related to efficiency initiatives. They also included a $982m pre-tax gain from the sale of the company’s stake in Global Business Travel Group, part of which American Express said was used to fund the restructuring.
“Our business momentum continues, with strength in billings, new acquisitions and Card Member retention, and excellent credit quality,” Mr Squeri said in the release. The company raised its full-year earnings per share guidance to between $18.30 and $18.60.
The results follow a $350m penalty imposed by US bank regulators on 8 October. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Reserve found that the company, primarily through its national bank, had failed to maintain a sufficient anti-money laundering compliance programme, Reuters reported.
The regulators cited inadequate resources, inexperienced staff, weak training and internal control gaps. The OCC said the lender had failed to identify, evaluate and sufficiently report roughly $13bn in suspicious activity over the past decade.
American Express did not admit or deny the findings. Mr Squeri said at the time that the company was “fully committed” to addressing the regulators’ concerns. “While we have made meaningful progress, we know there is more work to do,” he said.
He added that the penalty and the costs of meeting the regulators’ requirements were not expected to affect the company’s guidance for 2026 and 2027.
American Express is the latest financial company to reduce its headcount. Banks and other financial companies around the world have been shedding jobs in recent months as they look to streamline costs and implement artificial intelligence across their workflows.
Barclays announced last week that it would eliminate 5,000 jobs this year. HSBC and Citigroup are also cutting jobs.
Unite has accused Barclays of using AI as a smokescreen to push through redundancies, a charge the bank has denied.
Bill Winters, the chief executive of Standard Chartered, previously faced widespread criticism for referring to AI replacing “lower-value human capital” as he announced 8,000 redundancies.
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