Q2 2007 American Express Company Earnings Conference Call
7/23/2007 5:00 PM ET

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Supporting Materials

	Press Release
	Financial Tables
	Earnings Supplement
	Talking Points

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This release includes forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. The words "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "optimistic," "intend," "plan," "aim," "will," "may," "should," "could," "would," "likely," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which they are made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the following: the Company's ability to meet its ROE target range of 33 to 36 percent on average and over time, which will depend in part on factors such as the Company's ability to generate sufficient revenue growth and achieve sufficient margins, fluctuations in the capital required to support its businesses, the mix of the Company's financings, and fluctuations in the level of the Company's shareholders' equity due to share repurchases, dividends, changes in accumulated other comprehensive income and accounting changes, among other things; the Company's ability to grow its business and meet or exceed its return on shareholders' equity target by reinvesting approximately 35 percent of annually-generated capital, and returning approximately 65 percent of such capital to shareholders, over time, which will depend on the Company's ability to manage its capital needs and the effect of business mix, acquisitions and rating agency requirements; consumer and business spending on the Company's credit and charge card products and Travelers Cheques and other prepaid products and growth in card lending balances, which depend in part on the ability to issue new and enhanced card and prepaid products, services and rewards programs, and increase revenues from such products, attract new cardmembers, reduce cardmember attrition, capture a greater share of existing cardmembers' spending, and sustain premium discount rates on its card products in light of regulatory and market pressures, increase merchant coverage, retain cardmembers after low introductory lending rates have expired, and expand the Global Network Services business; the success of the Global Network Services business in partnering with banks in the United States, which will depend in part on the extent to which such business further enhances the Company's brand, allows the Company to leverage its significant processing scale, expands merchant coverage of the network, provides Global Network Services' bank partners in the United States the benefits of greater cardmember loyalty and higher spend per customer, and merchant benefits such as greater transaction volume and additional higher spending customers; fluctuations in interest rates, which impact the Company's borrowing costs and return on lending products; the continuation of favorable trends, including increased travel and entertainment spending, and the overall level of consumer confidence; the costs and integration of acquisitions; the success, timeliness and financial impact (including costs, cost savings and other benefits including increased revenues), and beneficial effect on the Company's operating expense to revenue ratio, both in the short-term and over time, of reengineering initiatives being implemented or considered by the Company, including cost management, structural and strategic measures such as vendor, process, facilities and operations consolidation, outsourcing (including, among others, technologies operations), relocating certain functions to lower-cost overseas locations, moving internal and external functions to the Internet to save costs, and planned staff reductions relating to certain of such reengineering actions; the Company's ability to reinvest the benefits arising from such reengineering actions in its businesses; the ability to control and manage operating, infrastructure, advertising and promotion expenses as business expands or changes, including the ability to accurately estimate the provision for the cost of the Membership Rewards program; the Company's ability to manage credit risk related to consumer debt, business loans, merchant bankruptcies and other credit trends and the rate of bankruptcies, which can affect spending on card products, debt payments by individual and corporate customers and businesses that accept the Company's card products and returns on the Company's investment portfolios; bankruptcies, restructurings, consolidations or similar events affecting the airline or any other industry representing a significant portion of the Company's billed business, including any potential negative effect on particular card products and services and billed business generally that could result from the actual or perceived weakness of key business partners in such industries; the triggering of obligations to make payments to certain co-brand partners, merchants, vendors and customers under contractual arrangements with such parties under certain circumstances; a downturn in the Company's businesses and/or negative changes in the Company's and its subsidiaries' credit ratings, which could result in contingent payments under contracts, decreased liquidity and higher borrowing costs; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; accuracy of estimates for the fair value of the assets in the Company's investment portfolio and, in particular, those investments that are not readily marketable, including the valuation of the interest-only strip relating to the Company's lending securitizations; the Company's ability to invest in technology advances across all areas of its business to stay on the leading edge of technologies applicable to the payments industry; the Company's ability to protect its intellectual property rights (IP) and avoid infringing the IP of other parties; the potential negative effect on the Company's businesses and infrastructure, including information technology, of terrorist attacks, natural disasters or other catastrophic events in the future; political or economic instability in certain regions or countries, which could affect lending and other commercial activities, among other businesses, or restrictions on convertibility of certain currencies; changes in laws or government regulations; outcomes and costs associated with litigation and compliance and regulatory matters; and competitive pressures in all of the Company's major businesses. A further description of these and other risks and uncertainties can be found in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006, and its other reports filed with the SEC.