NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – American Express increased sales significantly in the second quarter and significantly raised its annual targets. Revenues increased by 31 percent compared to the previous year to 13.4 billion dollars (13.1 billion euros), as the Visa and Mastercard rival announced on Friday in New York. CEO Stephen J. Squeri spoke of an “outstanding” quarter for the credit card company.
However, net income fell 14 percent to $2.0 billion. This was mainly due to higher risk provisions. The result in the previous year had been greatly improved by the reversal of provisions that American Express had made due to the threat of bad loans in the corona pandemic. The US financial group has now increased this capital cushion again by 410 million dollars.
Despite the gloomier economic outlook and growing fears of a recession, American Express raised its targets for the year as a whole. The company is now assuming sales growth of between 23 and 25 percent, after 20 percent at best had previously been announced. That was well received by investors – the share initially rose by around five percent before the market. Analysts had expected significantly worse numbers on average./mis
