American Express (AXP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

American Express (AXP -0.84%)
Q4 2022 Earnings Call
Jan 27, 2023, 8:30 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the American Express Q4 2022 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session.

[Operator instructions] 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, Ms. Kerri Bernstein. Thank you.

Please go ahead.

Kerri Bernstein -- Head of Investor Relations

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. 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 Squeri, chairman and CEO. We'll start with some remarks about the company's progress and results. And then, Jeff Campbell, 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 Jeff.

With that, let me turn it over to Steve.

Steve Squeri -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Kerri. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. It's great to be with you to talk about our 2022 results and our outlook for 2023.

As I go through our results, I'll tell you why they strengthened my confidence in our plan to generate strong growth over the long term. A year ago, we introduced our growth plan, which provided a road map for delivering annual growth rates for revenue and earnings per share at levels that are higher than the strong growth rates we were delivering before the pandemic. Our results over the last four quarters demonstrate that our strategy is clearly working. We exceeded the full-year guidance we laid out in our growth plan for both revenues and EPS, and we did so against the mixed economic environment.

Revenues, which reached all time highs for both the quarter and the year, were up 25% for the full year, exceeding the 18% to 20% guidance we started the year with. And earnings per share of $9.85 was well above our guidance of $9.25 to $9.65. The momentum we saw through the year in cardmember spending, engagement, and retention continued in the fourth quarter. Fourth-quarter billed business reached a record quarterly high of 357 billion and was up 25% for the full year, demonstrating our continued ability to acquire, engage and retain high-spending premium cardmembers.

Customer retention and satisfaction remain very strong. In addition to strong internal metrics, we were recognized once again by our customers for providing industry-best products and services, ranking No. 1 in customer Satisfaction in both the 2022 J.D. Power, U.S.

consumer Credit Card Study and the U.S. Small Business Card Study. The investments we've made in our value propositions continue to attract large numbers of new premium customers. We acquired 3 million new cardmembers in the fourth quarter, even as we increased our already high credit thresholds through the year.

For the full year, new card acquisitions reached a record level, growing at 12.5 million, and nearly 70% of our new accounts acquired are on our fee-based products. Millennial and Gen Z customers continue to be the largest drivers of our growth, representing over 60% of proprietary consumer card acquisitions in the quarter and for the full year. Credit metrics remain strong, supported by the premium nature of our customer base, our exceptional risk management capabilities, and the thoughtful risk actions we've taken for the year. Looking ahead to 2023 and beyond, let me tell you why these results increase my confidence that we're positioned to deliver on our growth plan aspirations.

First, we're in a great business. We operate in the most attractive segments and geographies of the fast-growing payments space, as highlighted by our leadership positions with premium consumers, including millennials and Gen Zers, small and medium-sized businesses, as well as serving the largest corporations in the world. We bring to this space a number of advantages that are very difficult for our competitors to replicate. These include our brand, our unique membership model, a premium global customer base, and an integrated payments model.

Forming the foundation of these advantages is our talented, dedicated colleagues who deliver unparalleled service to our customers. Together, the marketplace opportunities we see and the competitive advantages we can leverage create a long runway for growth. We intend to capture these opportunities and build on our momentum by continuing to invest at high levels in several key areas: continuously innovating our consumer and SMB products; refining our powerful marketing and risk management engines; and capturing our fair share of lending; growing merchant acceptance with a particular focus outside the U.S. and expanding partnerships to drive customer value across the enterprise; continuing to introduce new digital capabilities that delivers seamless, intuitive customer experiences in their channels of choice; and expanding into adjacencies that reinforce our core, such as new lifestyle and financial services for consumers and SMEs, which adds more value to our membership model.

All this investment happens while continually focused on gaining efficiencies in our marketing and operating expenses. As we've demonstrated consistently over the past two years, executing this investment strategy builds scale, which fuels a virtuous cycle of growth. It starts with a high-spending, highly engaged premium customer base. These premium customers attract a growing network of merchants and partners who had more value to our membership model, which in turn enables us to attract more premium customers who attract more merchants and partners, which creates more scale.

This scale enables us to generate more investment and operating efficiencies in our membership model, making it more difficult for our competitors to catch up. So, what does this mean for 2023? Our plan for this year is built on continuing our investment strategy in the areas I mentioned, while factoring in the blue chip economic consensus for slowing macroeconomic growth. And as always, we have plans in place to pivot should the economic environment change dramatically. This translates into 2023 guidance consistent with what we originally laid out in our growth plan last year.

Specifically, we expect revenue growth of 15% to 16%, which is higher than our long-term growth plan aspirations and EPS of $11 to $11.40. In addition, we plan to increase our quarterly dividend on common shares outstanding to $0.60 a share, up from $0.52, beginning with the first quarter of 2023 dividend Declaration. To sum up, our 2022 performance shows that our strategy is working. And based on our performance to date and what we see for 2023, I'm even more confident in our ability to achieve our aspirations for double-digit annual revenue growth and mid-teens EPS growth in 2024 and beyond.

I'll now turn it over to Jeff to provide more detail about our performance. As always, we'll have a Q&A session after Jeff's remarks.

Jeff Campbell -- Chief Financial Officer

Well, thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. It's good to be here to talk about our '22 results, which reflect steady progress against our multiyear growth plan that we announced last January, and also to talk about what our 2022 results mean for 2023. I'll also spend some of our time this morning focusing on our full-year trends since it is year-end and since looking at our business on an annual basis is more in sync with how we actually run the company. Starting with our summary financials on Slide 2.

Full-year revenues reached an all-time high of $52.9 billion, up 27% on an FX-adjusted basis. Notably, our fourth-quarter revenues of 14.1 billion also reached a record high for the third straight quarter and grew 19% on an FX-adjusted basis. This revenue momentum drove reported full-year net income of $7.5 billion and earnings per share of $9.85. For the quarter, we reported net income of $1.6 billion and earnings per share of $2.07, which did include a $234 million impact from our net losses in our AMEX Ventures strategic investment portfolio.

As I said, throughout the year, year-over-year comparisons of net income have been challenging due to the sizable credit reserve releases we had in 2021. Because of these prior-year reserve releases, we have also included pre-tax pre-provision income as a supplemental disclosure again this quarter. On this basis, pre-tax pre-provision income was $11.8 billion for the full year and $2.9 billion in the fourth quarter, up 27% and 23%, respectively, versus the prior year, reflecting the growth momentum in our underlying earnings. So, now, let's get into a more detailed look at our results, beginning with volumes starting on Slide 3.

We saw good quarter-over-quarter growth in volumes. I would note that we reached record levels of spending on our network in both the fourth quarter and full-year 2022. Total network volumes and build business were up 16% and 15% year over year in the fourth quarter and 24% and 25% for the full year on an FX-adjusted basis. Now, of course, growth rates from [Inaudible] earlier in the year included more of a recovery on the lower levels of volumes in 2021.

And we are now to the point where we have lapped the majority of this recovery. We are pleased with this growth and the fact that it is being driven across customer types and geographies. On slides 4 through 7, we've given you a variety of views across our U.S. consumer services, commercial services, and international card services segments and the various customer types within each.

There's a few key points I suggest you take away from these various perspectives. Starting with our largest segment. U.S. consumer billings grew 15% in the fourth quarter, reflecting the continued strength and spending trends from our premium U.S.

consumers. Our focus on attracting, engaging, and retaining younger cohorts of cardmembers to our value propositions drove the 30% growth in spending from our millennial and Gen Z customers on Slide 5, who you can now see make up 30% of spend within the segment. Turning to commercial services, you see that spending from our U.S. small and medium-sized enterprise customers represents the majority of our billings in the segments supported by our strategic focus on expanding our range of products to help our SMB clients run their businesses.

We saw another quarter of solid growth in U.S. SME, though you can see that it was the slowest-growing customer type this quarter, up 8% year over year. As you heard Steve talk about a bit last month at an investor conference, our SMEs have recently started to slow down spending in certain categories such as digital advertising, so we continue to monitor spending trends. Moving to our U.S.

large and global corporate customers, the one small customer type that has not come back to pre-pandemic spend levels. They did continue, though, their steady recovery this quarter with overall billings now 11% below pre-pandemic levels. And lastly, you see our highest growth in international card services as this segment is now in a steep recovery mode, given it started its pandemic recovery later than other segments. Spending from international consumer and international SME and large corporate customers grew 23% and 32% year-over-year, respectively, in Q4.

Across all customer types, T&E spending momentum remained particularly strong in the fourth quarter, while we also saw a nice sequential growth in the amount of goods and services spending versus last quarter. So, there were few pockets that slowed, such as the digital advertising spend in SME that I mentioned earlier. So, what do all of these takeaways mean for 2023? At this point? On a dollar basis, most of our spending categories have fully recovered, so I would expect more stable growth rates this year across spending categories, with the exception that year-over-year growth rates for T&E spending will likely be elevated in Q1 as we lap the impact of omicron from the prior year. Importantly, all of the things that Steve just talked about that make up the strategy underlying our growth plan have created a foundation for sustainable growth rates greater than what we were seeing pre-pandemic.

Now, moving on to loans and cardmember receivables on Slide 8. We saw year-over-year growth of 24% in our loan balances, as well as good sequential growth. This loan growth is now exceeding our spend growth as customers steadily rebuild their balances. Given the volumes, of course, have now lapped their steep phase of recovery, we do expect the growth rate of our loan balances to moderate as we progress to 2023 but to remain elevated versus pre-pandemic levels.

The interest-bearing portion of our loan balances, which surpassed 2019 levels last quarter, also continues to consistently rebuild with over 70% of year-over-year growth in the U.S. coming from our existing customers, which is about 10 percentage points more than what we saw in the years leading up to the pandemic. As you then turn to credit and provision on slides 9 through 11, the high credit quality of our customer base continues to show through in our strong credit performance. Cardmember loans and receivables write-off and delinquency rates remain below pre-pandemic levels.

So, they did continue to tick up this quarter, as we expect, which you can see on Slide 9. Going forward, we expect delinquency and write-off rates to continue to move up over time but to remain below pre-pandemic levels in 2023 for cardmember loans. Turning now to the accounting for this credit performance on Slide 10, Since it is year-end and because the pandemic has clearly impacted the timing of quarterly reserve build and release adjustments across the industry, I think it's helpful to look at our full-year provision results. Full-year 2022 provision expense was $2.2 billion, which included a $617 million reserve build, primarily driven by loan growth, the continued steady and expected increase in [Inaudible] rates, and changes in the macroeconomic outlook as the year progressed.

The $2.2 billion number is, of course, still unusually low by historical standards relative to the size of our loan balances and cardmember receivables. Of the full-year $617 million reserve build, we saw 492 million of it in the fourth quarter. Since earlier this year, we were still releasing a significant amount of the credit reserves we had built to capture the uncertainty of the pandemic. At this point, we no longer have any of these pandemic-driven reserves remaining on our balance sheet.

Moving to reserves on Slide 11. You can see that we ended 2022 with $4 billion of reserves, representing 2.4% of our total loans in cardmember receivables. This reserve rate is about 50 basis points below the levels we had pre-pandemic or day-one CECL, reflecting the continued premiumization of our portfolio and the strong credit performance we have seen. We view this consolidated reserve rate as more comparable to day-one CECL than the individual loans and receivables rates, because, as we talked a bit last quarter, our charge products, in many instances, now have some embedded lending functionality.

We expect this reserve rate to increase a bit as we move through 2023 but to remain below pre-pandemic levels. Taking all of this into account, in 2023, you should expect to see provision expense move back toward more of a steady state relative to the size of our loan balances and cardmember receivables for the first time since we adopted CECL in early 2020. Given the combination of our strong loan growth and the unusually low level, by historical standards, of provision expense in 2022, I would expect a significant year-over-year increase in provision expense. Moving next to revenue on Slide 12.

Total revenues were up 17% year over year in the fourth quarter and up 25% for the full year. This is well above our original expectations, driven by the successful execution of our strategy and is part of what strengthens our confidence in our long-term aspirations. Before I get into more details about our largest revenue drivers in the next few slides, I would note that you see a 200 basis points spread between our FX-adjusted revenue growth and reported revenue growth for this quarter. While this is less of an impact from the strong dollar than what we saw in the prior quarter, it does remain a modest headwind.

Our largest revenue line, discount revenue, grew 16% year over year in Q4 and 27% for the full year on an FX-adjusted basis. As you can see on Slide 13, this growth is primarily driven by the momentum seen in our spending volumes throughout 2022. Net card fee revenues continued to accelerate throughout this year, up 25% year over year in the fourth quarter and 21% for the full year on an FX-adjusted basis, as you can see on Slide 14. In 2023, I expect net card fees to be our fastest-growing revenue line.

I would expect growth to moderate from the extremely high level we saw this quarter. This steady growth is powered by the continued attractiveness to both prospects and existing customers of our fee-paying products due to the investments we've made in our premium value propositions, as Steve discussed earlier, with acquisitions of U.S. consumer platinum and gold cardmembers and U.S. business platinum cardmembers are all reaching record highs in 2022.

Moving on to Slide 15, you can see that net interest income was up 32% year over year in Q4 and 28% for the year on an FX- adjusted basis due to the recovery of our revolving loan balances. The rising interest rate environment has had a fairly neutral impact on our results in '22 as deposit betas lagged the rapid and steep benchmark rate increases during the year. However, when you think about 2023, deposit betas are now in line with more historical levels. So, I would expect the year-over-year impact from rising rates to represent more of a headwind in 2023.

To sum up, on revenues, we're seeing strong results across the board and really good momentum. Looking forward into 2023, we expect to see revenue growth of 15% to 17%. Now, all this revenue momentum we just discussed has been driven by the investments we've made. And those investments show up across the expense lines you see on Slide 17, starting with variable customer engagement expenses.

These costs, as you see on Slide 17, came in at 42% total revenues for the fourth quarter and 41% for the full year. Based off the Q4 exit rate, combined with our continued focus on investing to innovate our products, I'd expect variable customer engagement costs to approach 43% of total revenues in 2023. On the marketing line, we invested around $1.3 billion in the fourth quarter and $5.5 billion for the year. As a reminder, our marketing dollars mostly represent the things we do to directly drive the great customer acquisition results we are seeing.

As we look forward, we remain focused on driving efficiencies so that our marketing dollars grow far slower than revenues as we did for many years prior to the pandemic. As a result, in 2023, we expect to have marketing spend that is fairly flat to 2022. Moving to the bottom of Slide17 brings us to operating expenses, which were $4.1 billion in the fourth quarter and $13.7 billion for full-year '22. In understanding our opex results, it's important to note the net mark-to-market impact to our Amex Ventures strategic investment portfolio that I mentioned earlier with reference to Q4.

These gains and losses are reported in the opex line and totaled 302 million of losses for full-year 2022 while, in the prior year, we had a $767 million benefit in net gains. Even putting this aside, Steve and I have discussed all year our 2022 operating expenses do represent a step-function increase compared to prior years, as we have invested in key underpinnings to support our revenue growth and as inflation has had some impact on our expenses. Moving forward, similar to marketing, we are focused on gaining efficiencies and getting back to the low levels of growth in opex that we have historically seen. For 2023, we expect operating expenses to be around $14 billion and see these costs as a key source of leverage relative to the high level of revenue growth in our growth plan.

Last, our effective tax rate for full-year 2022 was around 22%. Our best estimate of the effective tax rate in 2023 is between 23% to 24%, absent any legislative changes. Turning next to capital on Slide 18. We returned $4.9 billion in capital to our shareholders in 2022, including $1 billion in the fourth quarter, with $639 million in common stock repurchases and $389 billion in common stock dividends, all on the back of strong earnings generation.

We ended the year with our CET1 ratio at 10.3%, within our target range of 10% to 11%. In Q1 '23, as Steve discussed, we do expect to increase our dividend by 15% to $0.60 per quarter, consistent with our approach of growing our dividend in line with earnings and our 20% to 25% target payout ratio. We'll continue to return to shareholders the excess capital we generate while supporting our balance sheet growth going forward. That then brings me to our growth plan and 2023 guidance on Slide 19.

2022 was a strong year where we exceeded our full-year guidance that we laid out in our growth plan last January for both revenues and EPS. These results have strengthened our confidence in our 2023 guidance. First and most importantly, we expect the strategies that Steve laid out earlier to deliver continued high levels of revenue growth, leading to our revenue growth guidance for 2023 of 15% to 17% and setting us up well for 2024 and beyond. As you think about the drivers of EPS growth in 2023, first, we expect to return to the low levels of growth we have historically driven in our marketing and operating expenses, producing some nice leverage.

Going the other direction, the two notable headwinds that should be just 2023 challenges are around the year-over-year impacts of provision and of interest rates, as I discussed earlier. Combining all of these factors together leads to our EPS guidance of $11 to $11.40 for 2023. There is clearly uncertainty as it relates to the macroeconomic environment. But as Steve discussed, our 2023 guidance factors in the blue-chip macroeconomic consensus for slowing growth though not a significant recession.

I'd also say that our guidance is based on what we're actually seeing in terms of behaviors from our customers around the globe. And of course, it reflects what we know today about the regulatory and competitive environment. We feel good about the momentum we see in our business and, in any environment, remain committed to running the company with a focus on achieving our aspirations of sustainably delivering revenue growth in excess of 10% and mid-teens EPS growth in 2024 and beyond, as we get to a more steady-state macro environment. And with that, I'll turn the call back over to Kerri to open up the call for your questions.

Kerri Bernstein -- Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, Jeff. Before we open up the lines for Q&A, I will ask those in the queue to please limit yourself to just one question. Thank you for your cooperation. And with that, the operator will now open up the line for questions.

Operator.

Questions & Answers:

Operator

[Operator instructions] One moment, please, for the first question. Our first question is coming from Ryan Nash of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Ryan Nash -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Steve Squeri -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, Ryan.

Jeff Campbell -- Chief Financial Officer

Good morning, Ryan.

Ryan Nash -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

So, Steve, you know, maybe just to focus on the revenue growth. Obviously, 15 to 17 is much better than the market was expecting, you know, given macro concerns. And, you know, there's obviously been a little bit of an uptick in white-collar unemployment. So, could you maybe just talk high level about how you're able to put up this type of revenue growth in a -- you know, in a somewhat weakening environment? Maybe just talk through some of the things that are idiosyncratic to Amex that Jeff just referenced at the end of the call that maybe the market isn't appreciating, that should be big drivers of revenue growth in the year ahead.

Thanks.

Steve Squeri -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Well, I think, you know, Jeff really hit it. I mean, you know, what he basically said was -- and this is where we -- what we're focused on is we can only run the business and, you know, and forecast the business on what we're seeing. And, you know, what we're seeing is we're still seeing high consumer growth. We're seeing, you know, high consumer growth in international.

You know, we talked about some moderation in small business. You know, corporate spending still has not come back. Jeff talked about T&E. I think when you think about the model, I think what you have to get an appreciation for is, you know, we're a small segment of the overall U.S.

population and it's a premium customer base. And, you know, that premium customer base, while not immune to economic downturn, certainly, right now, is spending on through. And so, you know, the other thing that we've been doing is, you know, we're constantly, you know, tightening up, you know, the cardmembers that we're acquiring. I mean, look, the cardmember base we have today is, from a credit perspective, better than the cardmember base that we had, you know, pre-pandemic.

And, you know, cardmembers were acquiring today are reaching a higher hurdle rate than ones we acquired just a year ago. And, you know, because of the value, there is still a good pool of customers that are out there. As far as, you know, overall white-collar unemployment, what I would say is, yeah, you've seen some headlines of individual companies that are, you know, going through layoffs. But the one thing that I would say is, I think it's really important to look at where these companies were pre-pandemic.

And they're probably still at employment levels that are much higher than what they were pre-pandemic. And so, there's a rightsizing a little bit. But even with that rightsizing, you know, we still have unemployment rates under 4%. And so, look, we look at unemployment, but it has not, at this particular point in time, had any impact on our cardmember base.

I mean, you know, again, we're, you know, keeping our right offset, you know, 0.8 and 0.6 is, you know, sort of not sustainable. And we're at, you know, 1.1. As Jeff said, you know, it shows on the slides and that will take up a little bit over time. But that's just normal for the business.

So, I think what you have to really -- you have to look at is this is a premium cardmember base that appreciates premium products and is spending. And it is a [Inaudible] it is a small piece of the overall U.S. economy. And, you know, we've talked about the economy being bifurcated, and there's probably no better example of what we have here.

The other thing that I would say, and when you think about revenue growth, unlike our competitors, you know, we have a three-legged revenue stool here, right? You've got fees that we get for merchants. You have card fees. Now card fees were 25% growth in the -- you know, in the fourth quarter. And while, you know, that's a high number, you know, we certainly expect double-digit card fee growth to continue.

And then, you have obviously -- which is a smaller portion of our business. You know, we have obviously, you know -- interest you know -- interest revenues as well. So, you know, we look at the cardmembers were acquiring. We're really looking at acquiring revenue across those three components.

And the other thing that I would point you to is 70% of the cards that we acquire are paying fees. So, you know, that's how we come up with 15% to 17%.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is coming from Sanjay Sakhrani of KBW. Please go ahead.

Sanjay Sakhrani -- Keefe, Bruyette and Woods -- Analyst

Thanks. Good morning. It's a revenue question as well. Jeff, could you maybe just disaggregate the building blocks of the revenue growth? You know, I know you mentioned a couple of things in terms of the trends on fees and NII.

I'm just looking at discount revenue and the year-over-year change in growth. And that sort of decelerated a little bit more than I had anticipated. I guess, does that slow down? Maybe some help there would be helpful.

Jeff Campbell -- Chief Financial Officer

I think, Sanjay, the building blocks are pretty straightforward. And of course, as Steve just pointed out, in our model, you always have to start spending, right? Because that's what drives our model, not lending. And I think probably the important words that I would pick out of some of the things Steve and I have just said is, for most of our spending categories, if you think about what's important in terms of dollars, we really have hit a recovery point. And so, as we look at the Q4 rates, I actually see those exit rates is approaching pretty stable levels for what we think, given the tremendous success we're having in bringing new customers into the franchise.

Because, as you know, Sanjay, that is a key aspect of what drives our growth. I actually see those rates being fairly stable going forward. So, that's what drives, first, really strong discount revenue growth. You know, our card fee growth, as Steve just mentioned, is super sustainable.

I just remind everyone that is the one line item that grew double digits right through all the ups and downs of the pandemic. And, gosh, our latest figures that Steve just gave you, 70% of our cardmembers on fee-paying products this quarter, we have a long ways to go to keep growing that card fees. And then, look, it's the third leg of the stool. It's only 19%, 20% of our revenues.

But net interest income matters. And we are still in a rebuilding mode of balance. Certainly, that process has now begun in earnest. And that's why you saw our loans grow a little faster than volumes this quarter.

So, you know, I don't expect to see quite as high a rate next year as you saw in Q4, but it's still above, in 2023, I would say the stable level and still above where we were pre-pandemic because of that rebuilding process. So, you put all that together with the comments that you've now heard both Steve and I make, which is, look, we got to run the business based on what we see with our customers who are premium consumers, select segments of small businesses, and the large companies in the world, and that's where you get to the 15% to 17% revenue growth.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is coming from Betsy Graseck of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Betsy Graseck -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Hi. Good morning.

Steve Squeri -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, Betsy.

Betsy Graseck -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

So, another, you know, kind of subtext on this theme, I wanted to understand a little bit about how I should be triangulating the revenue growth outlook, which is very clear with the comments around normalization of credit. Should I be expecting that you're underwriting to that pre-pandemic level of, was it, 2.3 on the slide, with marketing spend being flat and the proprietary, you know, net acquired accounts here, you know, coming down a little bit in the quarter. So, when I see all that, I'm thinking that your, you know, bubble of account acquisitions, you know, is through, I suppose, and you don't need that marketing dollars to drive that incremental rev growth. At the same time as, you know, you're underwriting to a group -- a credit pool that's similar to pre-pandemic, so we should have that, you know, NCO trajectory move back up toward pre-pandemic.

Or is there something, you know, that I'm missing in pulling that all together? Thanks.

Steve Squeri -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks. Well, I'll -- there's a lot there. But let me try and talk about marketing and Jeff can pick up on other components. But so, you know, the $5.5 billion of marketing spend was, you know, all-time record high and, you know, the 12.5 million cards that we acquired.

The fact that you saw a 300,000 card decrease, you know, sort of sequentially quarter over quarter is not something that we're concerned about at all and, you know, some of the timing of when you do your acquisition and so forth. And so -- but the key point here is that we are looking at marketing efficiencies. And, you know, we continuously raise the bar on who we are, you know, bringing into the franchise. So, you know, we're not -- I wouldn't say we're at a bubble in terms of card acquisition.

We don't project card acquisition. We provide the card acquisition numbers. But you know, for us -- and probably we need to do a better job, you know, going forward from a metrics perspective. But we really look at revenue.

I mean, we look at the cards that we acquire in terms of how much revenue we can acquire. You know, it's the same thing with billings. I mean, not all billings are created equal. I mean, there's billings that you have that don't have a lot of value to it within the industry.

We look at profitable billings, we look at card fees, and we look at that, as Jeff said, you know, interest income. So, I wouldn't take away from this that we're at an inflection point or a bubble or anything like that. I think the 5.5 billion is a tremendous amount of money to go out there and acquire with. And we're pushing the organization to even be more efficient and more effective with that money.

So, you know, we're looking at the same kind of acquisition levels that we've had in the past with higher underwriting standards as well. As far as operating expenses go, and, you know, as you start to think about that, we had a big step-up in operating expenses as we had tremendous growth, and, you know, having had a lot of experience running the components of this organization from both a technology perspective and an operating perspective, travel, and what have you. As you see those volume increases, you need to manage and get to that -- to get to that next level of scale. And we believe that we have gotten to that next level of scale and we'll get back to normal operating expense growth.

And the other part of it, just like everybody else, [Audio gap] increase, there was some inflationary pressure within there. But make no mistake about it, there was -- we had to get to another scale. When you have 25% revenue growth -- we have 25% billings growth. When you have, you know, travel bookings that -- you know at all-time highs and continuing to increase quarter over quarter, you have to put in place, not only the digital capabilities, but the people to make sure that you can handle all that.

So, from an expense perspective, the reason we're able to, you know, say that we think, you know, marketing will be where it is and operating expenses will not grow at the same level that they will is because we believe we've gotten to that scale component, that we now believe that we can grow revenues 15% to 17%, get into a 10% growth mode, plus 10%-plus growth mode 2024 and beyond, with that scale until the point in time -- and I don't know when that is -- where we have to have another scale, you know, jump. But what you saw from a growth perspective last year was all about the scale. So, Jeff, you want to talk about credit or anything else or --

Jeff Campbell -- Chief Financial Officer

No, I think you got it.

Steve Squeri -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

All right. So, that's how I would think about that in terms of going below, you know, sort of the components of revenue and how expenses relate to that revenue.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is coming from Mark DeVries of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Mark DeVries -- Barclays -- Analyst

Yeah, Thank you. I'm sorry if I missed this, but can you talk about how sensitive your revenue guidance is to the macro? Kind of what gets you to the high and low end of the range you provided? And are you using at all the same assumptions around GDP and unemployment that you use to, you know, to kind of set the reserve levels?

Jeff Campbell -- Chief Financial Officer

You know, Mark, one of the interesting things that I think surprises people, as we have looked historically every way you can imagine, trying to find really direct correlations between GDP growth and, for that matter, between movements in the markets that affect people's financial wealth, and the-- I think surprising thing to many people is we can't find any direct correlation between those two things. So, when you look at our 15% to 17% guidance, it's really come back to what Steve and I have both now said a couple of times, driven by our best indicator is what we see with our customers around the globe and how they're behaving. And we certainly are aware of and think about various macroeconomic forecasts. But you start with what behaviors are we actually seeing.

And I'd also remind everyone that, you know, the U.S. remains by far the largest market. The U.S. economy shrank in the first two quarters of 2022.

And we just posted revenue growth for the full year, 25%. So, when I think about the 15% to 17% range, it's really not, oh, 15 is a weaker economy than 17. Frankly, it's -- I wish we were more precise about forecasting, but it's just a little bit of forecast error. I would say, based on the trends we've seen and the macroeconomic consensus, which is absolutely -- you know, the economy is supposed to slow when you look at that consensus, and that's factored in here as well.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is coming from Mihir Bhatia of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Mihir Bhatia -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Thank you.

Jeff Campbell -- Chief Financial Officer

Good morning, Mihir.

Mihir Bhatia -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

I think you said -- good morning -- I think you said 70% of existing loan -- lending growth came from existing members. Is there a similar metric you can share on the spending side? I'm just trying to understand, as things normalize and, you know, we get into more of a normal cadence, how -- you know, maybe help us project a little bit on spending growth, how that can translate as we look at your last few quarters of strong acquisitions. Thanks.

Jeff Campbell -- Chief Financial Officer

Well, so what I would say is that when you look at lending, I am going to go back to that 70% number. And I do think it's an important one to think about the implications. I think, occasionally, people look at our loan growth and say, "Oh, is that all the new customers you're acquiring?" And, you know, what do you know about them? And so, we actually draw a lot of comfort from the fact that you have 70% of that loan growth coming from just our existing customers that we know well, that we have history with. We're really just rebuilding more toward historical levels.

If you think about spending, you know, in our model, we talk a lot about the fact that we have, I think, by the standards of most industries, remarkably higher retention rates, you know, in the high 90%, well, range. And that's a real key strength of our model. Once we get someone into the franchise, they tend to stay. You know, that group, depending on the economy, is growing organically a little bit.

When you think about adding our new customers, that is a key engine at any point in time of adding another -- you know, in a normal environment and it varies over time, but I might think you're around an 8% to 10% kind of number. So, it's a mixture of super low retention, what we're doing to spur more spending by our existing customers, and that steady flow of new customers. And so, you know, one of the things that -- again, that Steve and I have both just talked about because I think people seem a little surprised, Steve, by the 15% to 17% is a key driver why we're comfortable with that is our tremendous success over the last year and in the first weeks of 2023 in bringing great new customers into the franchise.

Steve Squeri -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. And the other thing I would say is -- and I said this in my remarks -- you know, this virtuous cycle that we talk about, you know, the more cardmembers we bring in, the more, you know, merchant and partner offers that we can get. And so, you know, the engagement -- the increased engagement from existing cardholders is a really important driver of growth. So, that -- the membership model is, you know, we just don't bring our cardmembers in and sort of watch them, you know, hope they grow.

You know, we bring our cardmembers in, and we want to work with them to grow. We do that from a small business perspective with our account development teams, making sure that they're taking advantage of all the benefits of the card, making sure that they're spending in categories that they can spend in, maximizing rewards, and so forth. And we do that, you know, with our core base from an offer perspective, you know, through Amex offers, through other, you know, direct offers from, you know, partners, you know, embedded offers within the model. And so, you know, a lot of our engagement, you know, not only from a customer service perspective, is to making sure that our cardmembers are taking advantage of all the aspects of the card that are out there.

And so, you know, we really look to grow, you know, same-store sales, right? I mean, so from existing card members, you know, we're constantly looking to grow that share of their wallet. And again, that gets easier as the cycle gets bigger because more and more merchants want to reach more and more of our cardmembers.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is coming from Brian Foran of Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.

Brian Foran -- Autonomous Research -- Analyst

Hi. Obviously, you know, a very positive outlook. I don't want to sound negative, but I think what we're all kind of dealing with is investors being like, "This is great. I'll take it.

But help me think about, you know, what are the risks? Where could it go wrong?" So, maybe one question and one follow-up along the same theme. You know, Jeff, when you were talking about the macro sensitivity, one question I hear sometimes is, you know, the note that the aspirational 2024 and beyond is a steady-state macro. And I get the investor question, like, where's the dividing line? Like, what would a non-steady-state macro look like where that guidance would then -- aspiration, you know, would then not apply? So, maybe you could touch on that. Like, what are the bounds in your mind for a steady-state macro?

Jeff Campbell -- Chief Financial Officer

Well, I think, Brian, I would start with two comments. First, when you think about our long-term aspirations, we don't actually worry about recessions at all, because the reality is, at some point -- and I don't know if it's six months from now or six years -- there will be a recession. And after that recession will be a recovery. And it doesn't change our view of we should be able to steadily grow this company in excess of 10%.

Now, when there's a recession where you see a very significant shrinkage in GDP, so not like the first half of last year where maybe the U.S. GDP went down a half a point or something, but where you suddenly see a quarter or two where you have pandemic-like or great financial crisis-like, you know, large percentage declines in GDP and you see huge spikes in unemployment. You know, if you go back to one of the appendix slides, you will see that our CECL credit reserve accounting assumes a baseline and also builds in a downside scenario. In that downside scenario, you have 8% unemployment by the third quarter of 2023.

Well, you know, if there's 8% employment by the third quarter of 2023, we're going to have a few quarters where we're probably below our longer-term aspirations. But it's that kind of large shock that's going to knock us off for a few quarters. But I really want to keep coming back to -- and I suspect, Steve, you might reinforce this -- but it doesn't change our long-term aspirations or how we're going to run the company.

Steve Squeri -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

No. And I think, you know, just go back to the pandemic. So, you know, look, we pulled back on acquiring cardmembers because I don't think anybody had any line of sight. I mean, the pandemic was worse than the financial crisis from a credit underwriting perspective.

You know, you never say never. But, you know, that's sort of like the 100-year flood, right? And so, you know, my perspective is, you know, we'll still acquire in that kind of scenario. And remember, everything we acquire today, we acquire through the cycle. But what we would do is move the credit criteria even further up.

But what we would do again is we would engage with our cardmembers. I think one of the most successful things that we did during the pandemic was retaining cardholders, retaining those cardholders, whether it was through financial relief programs that got them through the hump for a couple of months or six months, whatever it was, or engaging them to spend in other areas and to want to stick to -- stick with us. So, you know, the reality is, is that, you know, if we were running this business quarter to quarter, which we don't, you know, you would pull back. But the reality is, as Jeff said, after every recession is a recovery.

And the last thing you want to do is retrench in such a way that you're not going to be able to take advantage of the recovery. And that retrenchment, you know -- you know, it looks like, you know, layoffs that don't make sense and, you know, market pulling back on marketing, and trying to hit a -- hit an EPS number for a quarter or for a year that, you know, is irrelevant. What's relevant is for a 172-year-old company to continue to grow over the medium and long term. And the way you do that is you invest judiciously and you invest smartly.

And in times when things are bad, you invest in your infrastructure, you invest in your people because you're going to need great people through -- when a recession is over and [Inaudible] is going to need to do that. And where companies make mistakes is let go of great people and also do not invest in those things they're going to need six to nine months from now when the recession is over. So, yeah, we may have a moment in time. As Jeff said, it could be six months, it could be six years, but there will be a time when we don't make that.

And -- but there will be a time when we see that. And that's why we say, you know, our long-term aspiration is for 10% -- you know, 10% plus growth in revenue. And, you know, we feel we're on our way to that.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is coming from Rick Shane of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Rick Shane -- JPMorgan Chase and Company -- Analyst

Thanks for taking my question. Look, when we look at Slide 5, it's really interesting in terms of the contribution and the significant growth from millennials and Gen Z. And you guys have been really successful there, and we've seen that progress over time. I'm curious, given that the millennial, Gen Z growth in the last year was basically 5x, you know, 4x to 5x other cohorts, and the significant loan growth, if we looked at this distribution by age cohort, not for build business but by portfolio in terms of borrowings, what the distribution, what would it look like, would millennials over-index versus the peers?

Steve Squeri -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Well, the short answer, Rick, is no. When you think about the behavior of the millennials and Gen Zs, there are a few distinguishing features, and we've talked about these. They tend to be more digitally engaged. They tend to be more engaged with the overall value proposition, which we actually see as a good thing.

Because of that, they often will engage more quickly when they get a new product. But it also reminds you of the other stat we've talked about this morning, which is 70% of our growth in loans now is coming from existing customers. So, as we add a lot of these millennials there, that segment is still not adding as much to the loan growth because of the rebuild imbalances by your existing customers. So, while the behaviors of the younger cardmembers are, on average, similar to the older cardmembers, when you think about borrowing, just sort of the math here because you've got this rebuilding effect, we'd say that they're not driving that big a portion of our loan growth.

Yeah. And, you know, we tend to get a higher share of their wallets, but they have lower -- they do have lower spending. And, you know, the great part about millennials and Gen Zs is that there -- and depending on where you are in millennial, I mean, some millennials are 40 now. So, I mean, they're in a, you know, a different thing.

But -- and the reality is the lifetime value of these cardholders is going to be significantly more than the lifetime value of, you know, acquiring a boomer or acquiring a Gen Xer right now. And that is -- that's very attractive as well. And if you look again, Rick, on -- you know, on Page 5, you'll see that -- look, it's 30% of the build business growth. On the other hand, you know, the boomer growth is only 6%.

And, you know -- and some of those have been leery to go back traveling still. So, you know, we'd also expect that to go up.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is coming from Dominick Gabriele of Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Dominick Gabriele -- Oppenheimer and Company -- Analyst

Hey, good morning. Good results.

Jeff Campbell -- Chief Financial Officer

Hey, Dominick.

Dominick Gabriele -- Oppenheimer and Company -- Analyst

Good morning. I just want to change the topic a little bit. You know, I just wanted your updated thoughts. If you could just remind everybody about your ability to make account-by-account purchase limit authorization decisions given, you know, many of the accounts don't actually have stated line sizes on the charge cards.

So, I'm just really wondering about severity of loss in a downturn versus, you know, the frequency is more based on unemployment, but your ability to really hone in on limiting the severity of loss given your underwriting techniques. Thanks so much, guys.

Steve Squeri -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

I mean, I think you just reminded us. You know, the reality is -- it's couple of things, right? Number one, you know, we constantly go through and look at contingent liability that's not being utilized. And so, you know, if we have somebody that has X for a line and they're only using 25% of X, we may not keep X there that long. We don't want to be a lender of last resort, right? That's number one.

Number two, you know, we also are -- you know, for new cardmembers, we're raising those cycles -- raising the limit, excuse me -- raising the limit, the hurdle rate that we acquire cardmembers. But we underwrite every transaction. We make a credit decision not based on the line because most of our cardmembers do not have a line. I mean, obviously, traditional lending cards have line.

But other than that, we are underwriting every single transaction. So, we're not letting somebody just run it up because they've run it up in the past. And we're not letting somebody run up to a limit and have that write-off. One of the advantages of our model -- and I'm not going to get into all the variables underneath for a couple of reasons.

Number one, we don't have time. And number two, it's very complicated. And number three, I probably don't fully understand the whole thing either, but, you know, it's -- it is an advantage. This model is that every single transaction is adjudicated on its own merits.

It's not adjudicated based on an open-to-buy. And that is very important. It also -- but you know, that's a -- from a credit perspective, that's a really reassuring thing. But from a spending perspective, it also enables why you read some of these stories of, hey, I just bought, you know, a painting for $75 million.

There's nobody that has a $75 million line, right? Now, those are very difficult underwriting decisions and, you know, not for the faint of heart. But it does show that we make those same kind of decisions on a $200 purchase, on a $400 purchase. Every single transaction that comes through this system is adjudicated on its own merits, not on sort of some open to buy. And that gives us great comfort in terms of not having somebody just run something up and then have something written off.

Jeff Campbell -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. And the only thing I'll add, I think that is a unique capability we have honed over many decades since we first started the charge card product. The other advantage of the charge card product, I would say, Dominick, is it does give us this population who is supposed to pay us in full every 30 days, which actually is almost like an early warning system from an overall risk management perspective, when there are problems that pop up in various parts of the world or various segments or various customer types. And we think that's actually helpful to our overall results. And it's part of the many things that drives us historically and today to have, by far, best-in-class credit metrics.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is coming from Moshe Orenbuch of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Moshe Orenbuch -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Great. Great. Sorry to go back to the revenue guide, but Jeff -- and I appreciate the 25% revenue growth for the full year. But the quarter was 17.

And, you know, between you and Steve, you both said that, you know, there was going to be a slowdown. Still strong, obviously, but a slowdown in card fee revenue growth, and with the comments about margin, probably net interest income. So, I guess, you know, is there a part of the revenue base that you think is accelerating in '23?

Jeff Campbell -- Chief Financial Officer

Well, so two comments. I think it's a good call, Moshe. The first comment is, as you think about 2021, of course, the base year here, you saw things progressively pick up as you went through the years. So, that's why, each quarter, our volumes, on a year-over-year basis, have slowed a little bit.

But we also have pointed out that I think you're sort of through that recovery period now. So, I think what you see in Q4, in our view, is very typical of what you're going to get. Now, the one exception that we do think will accelerate is the net interest income piece because you do have customers continuing to rebuild balances. So, net card fees probably moderates a little bit, net interest income probably accelerates a little bit, but your discount revenue should be pretty consistent with what you have seen in this quarter.

And that's really the model that leads you from Q4 to what we expect for 2023.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is coming from Bob Napoli of William Blair. Please go ahead.

Robert Napoli -- William Blair and Company -- Analyst

Thank you. Maybe some topics that haven't been touched on yet. And, Steve, you called out investment in services and adjacencies, I'd say. And also the international piece, expanding your merchant acceptance there.

So, just any callouts on adjacencies to B2B payments and your -- how that contributes to your long-term strategy? And then, international, I seem to recall Japan being an important market for you. Saw some good growth internationally. Japan reopened, China's reopening. Is there acceleration potential in international in 2023?

Steve Squeri -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Sol let me hit a couple of these topics, and hopefully, I'll remember them all that you went through. But look, I think, international, you know, we've seen [Inaudible] really good and just look at the slides. You've seen really good growth from not only a consumer perspective, which is over 20%, but international, SME, and large corporations are growing at 32%.

So -- and remember, pre-pandemic, those are the fastest-growing parts of our business. So, we expect that to continue to grow, which obviously Japan is part of it and one of our -- you know, one of our top markets. From a -- from an acceptance perspective, we continue to grow, you know, acceptance internationally. We're really happy with, you know, with the coverage gains that we -- that we've had.

And we continue to focus on that. You know, we've talked about focusing on priority cities. We focused on, you know, all the categories, e-commerce and restaurants and lodging and tourist attractions, airlines, hotel, and so forth to get those up. But again, you know, with that, we're getting 23% and 32% billings growth.

And our coverage is not where we want it to be yet. And we will continue to invest in that coverage. Look, as far as B2B goes, B2B continues to be a good story for us, but it's just a small part -- it's a smaller part of the business. And, you know, we continue to invest in capabilities.

And, you know, we'll continue to focus on B2B, but that will add not only to commercial spending, but that will also add to small business spending as well. And remember, 80% of the small business spending that we have is in the category of B2B spending. And so, we'll continue to hunt for that and, you know, try and automate more and more of those billings. And it's -- makes it easy to get on the card.

Operator

Thank you. The next question will be coming from Don Fandetti of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Don Fandetti -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Hi. Steve, I'm just curious if you've seen anything that sort of raised your concern level around competition in U.S. consumer or small business. I mean, it seems, to us, like you might be pulling away a little bit from competitors.

I'm not sure if your metrics suggest that or not.

Steve Squeri -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Well, I mean, you know, I don't -- we continually look to raise the bar. And, you know, I think that there's a lot of great competitors out there. We've got, you know, JPMorgan and Bank of America and Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank and Capital One.

And, you know, everybody is -- they're all strong. And they -- you know, I mean, they had all -- had pretty strong results from a growth perspective. But, you know, as I said, you know, in my remarks, the more value we continue to add, the more we get our flywheel working, the harder it is to catch up. And, you know, we're not resting on our laurels.

And that's why we continue to invest. We continue to invest in value propositions, We continue to invest in capabilities. We continue to invest in service. And so, are we increasing the distance between us and our competitors? I don't know.

I don't know how you measure that. But I think we're -- our goal is to constantly make it hard for them to catch up. And our goal is to make sure that we're, you know, try and be one step, two steps, or three steps ahead of them. And, you know, it's flattering, actually, that they're coming after the segments that we're in.

And, you know -- but competition is there and it is fierce. And, you know, for us, competition is just not U.S. consumer. It's small business, it's corporate, it's international.

And so, we're fighting a lot of battles here in terms of, you know, defending our territory. But I think the team is doing a really, really good job. But we're never going to rest. And if, in fact, they stopped, we still keep going.

So, it is really important. I think it's one of the things that we decided a number of years ago that we would constantly refresh our products on a fairly regular basis and add value on an interim basis, which you've seen with our platinum card and our other products. And I think that's really helped us out quite a bit.

Operator

Thank you. Our final question will come from Lisa Ellis of MoffettNathanson. Please go ahead.

Lisa Ellis -- MoffettNathanson -- Analyst

Terrific. Thank you. Thanks for squeezing me in. I had a question about international.

The 26% of business growth in international really caught my eye because that figure is more than 2x of what Visa and MasterCard international credit growth was in the fourth quarter. And so, I was hoping to just dig in a little bit so -- into what, looking at your international business, is driving that and how sustainable it is. It looks like it's mostly driven by spending per card. The card growth isn't unusually high.

So, is there a -- you know, I'm trying to understand, is there a significant share gain going on? Is this acceptance that you're driving? Is there something unique about the geographic composition of the customer base? Can you just dig into that a little bit [Inaudible]? Thank you.

Steve Squeri -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, well -- yeah, so, Lisa, I think it's -- you know, look, pre-pandemic we were pretty close to 20% anyway from an international perspective. And, look, it's a smaller base than Visa, MasterCard, and it's a really high premium customer segment. And, you know, and it's a segment that travels. It's a card base that travels quite a bit.

So, pre-pandemic, we were growing in that 20% range. And, you know, that growth was, you know, due to a real focus on value proposition and a focus on merchant acceptance. I think what you're seeing right now, which is, you know, 26% growth, which is slightly outsized growth, is still a recovery from the pandemic, right? I mean, if you think about it, this 26% growth quarter over quarter, you still had a lot of lockdowns. People were not traveling last -- you know, last year at this time in international.

And so, you know, look, our goal is to you know -- our hope is to continue to grow this business as it was pre-pandemic at around that 20% level. But, you know, from my perspective, there's really nothing unusual here. We're sticking to our strategy, enhancing the value, continue to add merchant acceptance, and continuing to invest in this segment -- these two segments of small business and an international consumer card, which we're fast growing pre-pandemic. So, nothing really unusual.

And, you know, we'd probably normalize a little bit, you know, as the year goes on because people were getting out there and traveling and we got into the second and third quarters.

Kerri Bernstein -- Head of Investor Relations

With that, we will bring the call to an end. Thank you for joining today's call and for your continued interest in American Express. The IR team will be available for any follow-up questions. Operator, back to you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, the webcast replay will be available on our investor relations website at ir.americanexpress.com shortly after the call. You can also access a digital replay of the call at (877) 660-6853 or (201) 612-7415, access code 13734498 after 1 p.m. Eastern Time on January 27th through February 3rd. That will conclude our conference call for today.

Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Duration: 0 minutes

Call participants:

Kerri Bernstein -- Head of Investor Relations

Steve Squeri -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Jeff Campbell -- Chief Financial Officer

Ryan Nash -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Sanjay Sakhrani -- Keefe, Bruyette and Woods -- Analyst

Betsy Graseck -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Mark DeVries -- Barclays -- Analyst

Mihir Bhatia -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Brian Foran -- Autonomous Research -- Analyst

Rick Shane -- JPMorgan Chase and Company -- Analyst

Dominick Gabriele -- Oppenheimer and Company -- Analyst

Moshe Orenbuch -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Robert Napoli -- William Blair and Company -- Analyst

Don Fandetti -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Lisa Ellis -- MoffettNathanson -- Analyst

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