American Express 2002 Annual Report Download - page 20

Download and view the complete annual report

Please find page 20 of the 2002 American Express annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.

Page out of 92

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • 34
  • 35
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • 41
  • 42
  • 43
  • 44
  • 45
  • 46
  • 47
  • 48
  • 49
  • 50
  • 51
  • 52
  • 53
  • 54
  • 55
  • 56
  • 57
  • 58
  • 59
  • 60
  • 61
  • 62
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • 66
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70
  • 71
  • 72
  • 73
  • 74
  • 75
  • 76
  • 77
  • 78
  • 79
  • 80
  • 81
  • 82
  • 83
  • 84
  • 85
  • 86
  • 87
  • 88
  • 89
  • 90
  • 91
  • 92

volume onto our merchant network, and significantly
increase the number of merchants accepting the Amer-
ican Express Card in selected markets. At the same
time, our partners benefit from association with the
American Express brand and access to our network
services. We currently have network partnerships with
77 financial institutions in the same number of coun-
tries. Together, these GNS partners launched 40 new
products during the past year.
We look forward to launching this business in the United
States once the appeals of the Department of Justice
lawsuit against Visa and MasterCard are completed.
New Products and Relationships in Global
Corporate Services
American Express is also the leading provider of card,
travel and purchasing management services to large
and middle market companies around the world. In
particular, the corporate middle market is a rapidly
expanding segment that offers great opportunity for
growth. In 2002, we invested heavily in the middle
market, expanding marketing efforts and adding sales
staff in 13 countries. We also launched the Savings at
Work program, which provides U.S. mid-sized firms
with significant discounts on everyday products and
services such as office supplies and a range of business
services, and we enhanced our product offerings to
mid-sized firms in other parts of the world.
We continued to provide innovative online tools that
enable both large and middle market clients to better
plan and manage travel and T&E spending. New U.S.
offerings in 2002 included additional applications in
TravelBahn, our proprietary corporate travel infrastruc-
ture that streamlines the reservations process and
provides access to webfares. In addition, we enhanced
the American Express @ Work travel expense manage-
ment system with two new tools — first, an application
for filing expense reports and reconciling everyday
purchases, and second, a searchable database that
corporate travel managers can access to keep track of
employees’ travel reservations.
During the year, we added or expanded multiple
Corporate Card and Corporate Purchasing Card
relationships around the world including those with
I18 AXPI
ONE ACCOUNT_ Launched in 2002, the American Express ONE
Financial Account, which merges investments, banking, lending
and other financial services offerings into a single account, proved
to be a strong asset-gathering tool for American Express Financial
Advisors (AEFA). Average assets for ONE clients were four times
higher than for other AEFA clients.