American Express 2010 Annual Report Download - page 13

Since launching last September, this has become
one of our most popular redemption options.
B2B e-commerce expansion: We had strong
growth in our commercial payments business,
with record charge volume, continued expansion
into new spending categories, and new online
expense management products. Today, nearly
four out of every ten dollars spent on commercial
cards is for non-T&E purchases.
Digital advances: Being a part of our customers’
digital lifestyles means engaging with them
in new ways. We are evolving our traditional
businesses for an increasingly digital world, such
as mobilizing communities through social media,
delivering location-based oers, crowd sourcing
product design and feedback, and evolving
Membership Rewards as a virtual currency.
New capabilities: We are also finding new,
easier ways to deliver valuable offers. Take
our Registered Card technology. It allows
merchants to make custom-tailored offers to
our cardmembers without coupons or codes.
Merchants can target and reward specific
customer actions, such as multiple visits
or certain spending thresholds. The reward
appears automatically on the cardmember’s
billing statement.
Strategic acquisitions: Some capabilities we
develop on our own, others we buy. In 2010,
we acquired Accertify, a leading provider of
online fraud prevention services for merchants.
We also announced an agreement to acquire
Loyalty Partner, a company that links 35 million
consumers with hundreds of merchant partners
in loyalty coalitions across Germany, Poland
and India. In this model, multiple merchants
join together to operate a single loyalty
program with a common rewards currency. This
acquisition will greatly increase our customer
base outside the U.S. and expand our skill set in
customer loyalty management.
Payment forms beyond charge and credit: Since
acquiring Revolution Money about a year ago,
we have been working to transition it from a
separate business unit into an enterprise-wide
platform to support future digital initiatives. In
2011, we plan to launch this next-generation
payment platform, rebranded and retooled, as
a first step toward delivering more alternative
payment options, including peer-to-peer
payments, mobile capabilities, prepaid products,
virtual currencies and international remittances.
New fee services: We continue to find more ways
to turn existing capabilities and relationships
into new fee services. In the past 18 months, we
launched or expanded several, including Business
Insights, which provides analytics and consulting
services to help merchants attract more
customers and increase sales, and AcceptPay,
which simplifies the invoicing and payment
process for small businesses. While these eorts
are still very young, we are encouraged by their
progress. Overall, we set an aggressive goal to
generate $3 billion in annual fee-based revenues
for the company by the end of 2014.
Expanded merchant relationships: Our global
merchant network is strong and growing. We
added more than one million new merchant
locations in 2010. At the same time, our average
discount rate, or the fee we charge merchants
for our services, has remained stable. Both
results point to the superior value we provide
to our merchant partners by driving more high-
spending customers to their doors and websites.
Network partnerships: From the biggest bank
in Russia, Sberbank, to retail icons Macy’s and
Bloomingdale’s in the U.S., we continued to
expand our Global Network Services (GNS)
partnerships. Cards issued by our bank partners
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AMERICAN E XPRESS C OMPANY