Okay, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the American Express Q2 2018 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. I'd now like to turn the conference over to our host, to Mr. Edmund Reese, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Lori. Welcome. We appreciate all of you joining us for today's call. The discussion contains certain forward-looking statements about the Company's future financial performance and business prospects, which 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 forward-looking statements are set forth within today's presentation slides and in the Company's reports on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The discussion today also contains certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information relating to comparable GAAP financial measures may be found in the second quarter 2018 earnings release and presentation slides, as well as the earnings materials for prior periods that may be discussed, all of which are posted on our web site at ir.americanexpress.com. We encourage you to review that information in conjunction with today's discussion. Today's discussion will begin with Steve Squeri, Chairman and CEO, who will start the call with some remarks about the company's progress and results; and then, Jeff Campbell, Chief Financial Officer, will provide a more detailed review of Q2 financial performance. Once Jeff completes his remarks, we will move to a Q&A session on the quarter's results, with both Steve and Jeff. With that, let me turn it over to Steve.

Thanks Edmund and good afternoon everyone. As I have been meeting with shareholders and analysts over the past several months, a number of you have said, you would like to hear my views of the company more frequently. With that in mind, I plan to join our earnings call with Jeff, going forward, to share my perspective on our strategic progress and quarterly results. Jeff will continue to cover our financial performance in more detail, before we take your questions. As you saw in our release earlier today, we had a strong second quarter that built on the momentum we started the year with. Revenues grew 9% and earnings per share were $1.84. We are a globally integrated payments company and the power of our differentiated business model was evident throughout the results. Our revenue growth was driven by broad-based increases in card member spending and fees, and it also reflected higher loan volumes, which that spending growth helped to generate. Second, we are both strengthening relationships with current customers and attracting new ones, through innovative products and services. Third, our disciplined control of operating expenses, combined with revenue growth, gave us the flexibility to make substantial investments in our global brand campaign. Additional customer benefits and digital capabilities that will help us grow our business over the long term. In addition to our business results, we completed this year's CCAR process with a green light to increase the quarterly dividend, and we are resuming our share buybacks this quarter. All in all, I feel very good about our results to-date. Looking ahead, we expect 2018 revenues to be up at least 9% and we are reaffirming our full year EPS guidance at the high end of the range we set for this year, which is the $6.90 to $7.30…

Well thanks Steve, and good afternoon everyone. It's good to be here today, to talk about another quarter with strong performance. To get right into our summary of financials on slide 3, second quarter revenues of $10 billion grew 9%, another quarter of revenue growth at the highest levels we have seen since the financial crisis. Even more importantly, this result was driven by strong growth across all of discount revenues, fee revenues, and net interest income. Given the recent strength in the dollar, our reported revenue growth was pretty consistent with our FX adjusted revenue growth, unlike the last few quarters, where the weaker dollar caused our reported revenue growth to be above our FX adjusted revenue growth. Net income was $1.6 billion, up 21% from a year ago, and earnings per share was $1.84 for the quarter, up 25% from the prior year. Now of course, our earnings growth this year reflects the passage of the Tax Act last December, but it also reflects our business model's steady and consistent earnings growth, along with the impact of our share repurchases, lowering the shares outstanding by 3%, despite the suspension of our share repurchase program for the first half of 2018. All in, these are results we feel really good about. Looking at the details of our performance, I will start with Billed Business, which you see several views of on slides 4 through 6. I'd start by pointing you to the top right of slide 4, where you see that there are two different trends impacting our overall billings growth. This quarter, our proprietary billings make up 85% of our overall billings, and growth in these proprietary billings accelerated to 12%, up from 11% in the first quarter, all on an FX adjusted basis. This is another sign…

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. Operator?

Thank you. And we have a question from the line of Bob Napoli with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Steve, just a question on the page 2 of your strategic imperatives. Do you have specific measurements against each of those four that you are comparing yourselves to, and can you give any color on what you are looking at?

Yeah. So I think, so as we look at the four strategic imperatives, we have looked at these over the longer term, and so while we are not looking at specific year-to-year growth targets, we really are looking at, what, from a capabilities, and what from an accomplishment perspective. So let me just give you an example. When we look at the premium segment, what we are really looking to do, is to expand our definition of premium, as you have thought about premium over the years, we have thought about premium from the perspective of premium wallets. We are really looking at those that really look for premium service, premium access. And so that then includes to expand to more millennials, and so, when we look at some of our platinum card acquisition, and over half of our acquisition is coming millennials. So from that regard, it really is an expansion of the value proposition. When we look at sort of the second one as it relates to our competitive -- continue to build on our competitive position from a commercial perspective, things like our growth from an SME perspective and international, our continued growth and progress that we made from a co-brand perspective in the U.S. with Hilton, with Marriott, and the launch of the Amazon card. So looking much more than just the metrics we have, but how we are embedding ourselves even more, and the launch of working capital and so forth. When we get into the network piece of it, we are really looking to expand with more partnerships, and Wells Fargo is a great example of that expansion, and in addition, obviously, coverage, we continue to push on coverage, and we have stated from a coverage perspective, we want to be a parity coverage in the U.S. by the end of 2019. From a digital perspective, when we talk about being more essential in people's digital lives, I think here, there is a lot of qualitative stuff that's going on. I mean, to be able to go from a J.D. Power survey from number six last year, from a mobile app perspective to number one, and why do we do that? Well, we really focused on engaging our customers in that app, number one. Putting chat based services within that, looking at other things from a digital perspective, whether it's the blockchain test that we are doing, our acquisition of Mezi and our acquisition of Cake. So as we think about those four things, we are really looking, from an initiative perspective and how we are moving those things forward. And I think, the initiatives that I laid out and the specific actions that we have done is, is moving those business priorities forward for us.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Okay. Thank you. And our next question will come from Chris Brendler with Buckingham. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks [indiscernible] and thanks for taking the question. I guess, to circle back on the U.S. car business for a second, you said you had a Platinum refresh last quarter. How much of that Platinum refresh was lapping in the second quarter, and sort of more broadly, as you lookout the rest of the year, the marketing investments you have made this quarter, is the plan for the second half to really continue to put the pedal to the metal on marketing, and what does that mean for U.S. bill business growth? Thanks.

Well I think, Chris, to be clear, as you recall, in the U.S., we refreshed both the consumer, as well as the small business Platinum products in the early part of 2017, and we have been thrilled with the reaction to both of those upgrades. One of the things I cautioned people about last quarter, on the April call, was that well, the second quarter was going to be the first quarter where we fully lapped all those changes, and that might cause a little bit of a moderation in growth in those two products. Not as much surprised this quarter, which we really didn't, and so we were particularly pleased to see on the consumer side, that the growth rates did not slow at all, even though we have completely lapped now all of those changes we made, and I think it really goes back, Steve, into the strategic imperative. It's all about differentiated value propositions that we can put in the marketplace, and we feel really good about that Platinum. The other comment I made is, we are in an unusual situation as a company, and that we have tremendous opportunities to invest and accelerate our growth across both consumer, commercial, U.S. and international, and we are always leaving a few really good opportunities on the table, as we balance short and long term financial performance. So when we have really good performance, as we have had year-to-date, it allows us to dip a little deeper into those really good opportunities, and I think that bodes really well for long term sustainability of the kind of revenue growth we are seeing now.

And to Jeff's point about continuing to invest in unique and differentiated services, we had announced the -- we are going to implement three new lounges, which adds again to more value for our travelling Platinum card members. We have also added to the Platinum card merchant funded value offers from Sacks, and so that adds more value, and it shows the power of the integrated model. We are able to take our merchant relationships that we have and marry those up with our high spending card members, and it works for our card members, and it obviously works for our merchants as well. But just -- the other point that I did make, and that may have caused a little bit of a confusion is, in addition to -- obviously, we refresh the Platinum card products in the United States, we did in the second quarter, refresh the Platinum card products that we have in Hong Kong and in Mexico, and those cards are of smaller footprint, obviously, than our U.S. -- both U.S. platinum cards. But I think it is important to show that, as we think about the premium segment, you tend to focus on the premium segment as the U.S. There is a large premium segment outside the United States, and it is really important for us to continue to refresh the product line on a global basis.

Great. Thanks guys.

Thank you. And our next question will come from Sanjay Sakhrani with KBW. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Steve, good to have you on and hi Jeff. Thanks for taking my question. I guess, as you mentioned, your top line expectations are now better than expected, and your EPS guidance didn't really change. Should we assume all of the incremental revenues are being spent, and that the marketing and business development line, that was up quite considerably, and you mentioned several reasons why. Should we expect that to continue to grow at the rate it is going forward, and maybe you could just talk about the payback on those returns? Thanks.

Let me make a couple of comments, and then I will ask Jeff to jump in. Again, I think we try to be as transparent as we can from an EPS perspective. We have adjusted at the end of the first quarter, as we looked out, we said, obviously $6.90 to $7.30, we said we'd be to the high end. But we feel really good about 25% EPS growth this quarter and 38% growth in the first quarter. Adjusted revenue growth of at least 8% for five consecutive quarters. And I think what's important to think about when you think about customer engagement, is that, you know, we are making investments not only to drive results this year, but we are looking to drive results in the moderate to long term. And so, our objective is, is really to make sure that our revenue growth levels are sustainable, and our objective is also to make sure we are taking advantage of those opportunities, as they present ourselves. And Jeff has just made his point. I mean, we don't want to have opportunities go by the board. So that's how we think about it.

I don't really have a lot to add. I think Sanjay, the second quarter marketing and promotion was a particular spike, because we only launch a new brand campaign every couple of years. But to Steve's point, that is also the line -- where a lot of the things we do that, we think are about driving longer term growth though. So we feel good about the fact that we are hitting the high end of the guidance range we started out with, and we feel really good about the revenue growth sustainability we are building.

Thank you.

Thank you. And our next question will come from Bill Carcache with Nomura Securities. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good evening. It looks like the contribution of your discount revenue as a percentage of revenues, net of rewards expense increased to 50% this quarter from 48% last quarter, while your net interest income contribution actually decreased. That seems to mark a reversal in the trend that we have been seeing. So you know, my question is, as we look ahead, is it reasonable to expect that we will continue to see a growing mix of your revenues coming from spend versus lend? And if I may just tack on to that, there has been some focus on the other operating expenses being better and part of that being from like reserve releases and perhaps, could you comment on, whether, consistent with your philosophy of reinvesting gains in the business, that perhaps part of the reason for the increase in marketing and promotion was the opportunistic reinvestment of some of those releases? Appreciate that.

Well let me see if I get all, if I miss one, you can come back. First, I guess I'd make a couple of points on the net interest income discount rate mix. And that, on the discount revenue side, look, you do have a couple of things like OptBlue, like the immediacy of the regulation in Australia, and Europe, like some of the big strategic partner renegotiations we had last year, that are causing a little bit more reduction in the discount rate this year, than we would probably expect on a run-rate basis. So by definition, that tells you over time, discount revenues should move up a little bit in the mix. On the opposite side, we have had a really good run on net interest income, of doing a lot of really good stuff on the pricing side. But, I have been pointing out for a few quarters, that is an end to that, and so, I do expect the growth in net interest income to moderate down more to where loan growth is. So I do think those two things in the absence of other changes in the business will cause a continuation of the trend that you called out. In terms of reserve releases, I guess I am, Bill, a little puzzled by that. There is nothing in particular that's unusual going on in our operating expense line. We are just, as we always will be and as we have been for many years, very focused on the aspect of our business model, that is we can grow and pump a lot of revenue through our fixed cost infrastructure without adding a lot of cost, and technology helps us do that more efficiently every year, and that's really what you see happening on the operating expense side. When you hear Steve and I talk about investing a little bit opportunistically this year, it really comes from the revenue upside.

Yeah, just one other point that I will make, is as you look at sort of the shift I guess, the little bit of the shift mix, and it's a slight shift mix this particular quarter, we are really focused on driving spend, right? So and if you dig within the numbers, and if you go to the slide that showed sort of the breakout of billings, you see across every single one, whether it's SME, SME international, U.S. consumer, and consumer international, these are all double digit growth numbers, and when you look -- if you net out GNS, we had 12% proprietary billings growth in the second quarter. And you know, we had that GNS drag due to regulatory issues in Europe and in Australia. Well that spending is obviously driving the discount rate revenue, but that's the spending as well, where the lending comes in. We drive spend, and from that spend, we get -- we look to get whatever lend we can get from our existing customers. And again, and Jeff mentioned this in his remarks as well, 60% of our AR growth this particular quarter came from existing card members. So we feel good about how the model is working, right? I mean, the whole thing works together. We are -- the discount rate is working for us as well. It's driving more spend. That spend drives more lend with existing customers, hence, drives, what we believe, is very good revenue growth at 9%.

Thank you very much.

Thank Bill.

Thank you. And our next question will come from Ryan Nash with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hey Ryan.

Good evening guys. How are you doing? Jeff, I wanted to ask a question on capital; you talked about the 10% to 11% CET1 as the binding constraint as you shift from CCAR to the rating agencies. I guess, given the lower risk and less NII dependency of your model, like why is that the right number, given that your model is less lend centric and a lot of the other traditional card lenders will be running at 10% to 11%? And I guess, what do you think is the right level of capital to actually run the business, relative to what the rating agencies are telling you? Thanks.

You know Ryan, maybe I should bring you with us on our next round of meetings with the rating agencies. You are correctly pointing out that, as I think about what the Fed has said publicly about where they are likely be taking this CCAR process, I think the Fed sees this [ph] to be the constraint on our capital, and I do think it's about the rating agencies. We are very comfortable with the way we are rated today, but we think the ratings we have are important to sustain, and the reality of the way we work with the rating agencies today, is that's going to require us to stay at that tier-1 common equity ratio in the 10% to 11% range. And certainly, we have lots and lots of discussions with them about this unique strength of our business model, about how strongly we performed in economic downturns and that's probably [ph] something you see in the Fed's modeling of the latest round of CCAR results. But I am trying to be very transparent. 10% to 11% isn't where we are today, unless we succeed in further -- working with the rating agencies. So I will give you a call to tell you when the next meeting is, and you can join us.

Got it. Thanks.

Thank you. And our next question will come from Eric Wasserstrom with UBS. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much. Just pulling up on the top line discussion. It seemed that, except for the impact from regulation on discount revenue; discount revenue would have continued to accelerate year-over-year. And so, what did your sense about some of the underlying drivers, such as the benefits of corporate tax reform on commercial C&E growth and that kind of thing to the extent that these can continue to maintain accelerating discount revenue, as the comps begin to get a little bit tougher, relative to the back half of last year?

Well, let me start Steve, maybe then you can continue. So it's a good question Eric. When you think about sustainability, I'd make a few comments. We can look at the acceleration in revenue growth we have seen over the last few years, and very-very much link it to changes we have made in the business, and that really builds confidence as to the sustainability. Couple of things around the edges though, that I would say, go a little bit beyond that, that's clearly in this calendar year, we are benefitting a little bit from buying the Hilton portfolio. So that goes away next year, and the other thing is, last quarter, I brought up the fact that we had seen a modest acceleration in organic growth that began very late last year. It has now sustained itself for the first half 2018, and that clearly is indicative of the fact that at least for the demographic of customers we serve, there is clearly some increased level of confidence. So that could strengthen, it could weaken, we will have to see where the economy goes. But other than those two pieces, I think, we feel pretty good about the things we have done that are driving the revenue growth and their sustainability.

Yeah. And I think two of those things that we are doing, that are really driving the revenue growth, it's really the coverage initiatives. I mean, when there is more and more places that use the card. I mean, last year, we signed over 1 million merchants in the United States, and what happens is, that gives us an opportunity to go after a higher share of wallet with our existing card members, and it's also, a very good way to attract new card members. And we are doing a really good job from an acquisition perspective, both in the United States and in our international markets, of gaining new card members, both from a commercial perspective, and from a consumer perspective. I mean, just to put a highlight on, so that the volume growth, when you look at the second quarter, 25% SME international growth and 18% consumer growth in international, and that shows us that the investments that we have made and we are going to continue to go do well on those same investments, because they are truly working for us. And look, the SME business in the U.S. and the consumer business in the U.S. are obviously more mature than the businesses that we have, and a little bit more competitive than -- from an international perspective. But again, double digit growth in both of those portfolios as well. So again, really a lot of focus on our card member acquisition efforts. Coverage is really helping, and then, we also do, is the journeys we take our card members through, to get more and more of their spend from a trigger marketing perspective, we continue to do that, and will continue to do that, as we look to get more and more pockets of their spend.

Thanks. And if I can just follow-up on one question? You indicated that there is some increase in investment coming from the top line strength. I think previously Jeff, you had indicated that might be something around $200 million in the second, third and fourth quarters. Is that still the same investment level?

Well, to be clear, so the $200 million, Eric, is what -- when the Tax Act passed in December. We actually made a very conscious choice. Even we had the plan done for the year, to add another $200 million, because we didn't made that choice till the beginning of January, we couldn't thoughtfully spend it in the first quarter. What we are telling you on this call is above and beyond that $200 million, our revenue strength is allowing us to both get to the high end of our guidance range, but also put some additional money to work, making sure we are doing all the kinds of things, Steve, you just talked about, that are going to really sustain the sort of revenue growth we are getting.

Thanks very much.

Thank you. And we have a question from the line of Mark DeVries with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Yeah thanks. Was hoping to better understand kind of strategically, why you decided to add this new Shop Saks benefit to the Platinum card, at a time, I think where you'd indicated you are already very pleased with kind of the reengagement and the customer acquisitions you are getting from that card. What was the need to do that? And also, could you give us a sense of the cost? To you, I mean, presumably, you are not paying your merchant partner a hundred cents on the dollar for the benefit. I assume, the same goes for the benefit you provide through Uber. If you could just give us a sense of what the costs might be, relative to how the --

I am going to give you a sense of what the cost is for Saks, zero. It's fully funded by the merchant partner. So as we -- look, we are in a big -- one of the unique advantages of our model is, we manage a lot of our merchants, and as we manage them, what the objective is, is to help them drive and grow their business, and in conversation with Saks, they are very interested in our Platinum card holders. Our Platinum cardholders tend to spend money at Saks, and/or merchants like Saks. And so, in working with Saks, we came up with $100 annual credit on Saks purchases. And so, the real question is, why wouldn't you? Someone is handing you $100 and it fits from a premium perspective, it fits from a demographic perspective, it's going to help drive value to Saks and it helps drive value to our customers as well. So that's why we added the benefit. And I think, we will continue to add merchant funded benefits when they make sense. And what happens also with the Platinum card, this is an offer that sticks with the whole year. What we will do from time-to-time, is do time based offers for our Platinum card holders and for our Centurion card holders, because merchants want access to those customers, so that's why we did it.

Okay, fair enough. Thank you.

Thanks Mark.

And we have a question from the line of Don Fandetti with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Hey Don.

Hey Don.

Steve, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the commercial segment? The bill business is obviously performing well. You got the Amazon co-brand. Can you talk a little bit about the competitive intensity in commercial, maybe contrast it with consumer, and do you think there is more upside to the growth rates that you are seeing today?

Yeah. So it's different, right? I mean, so let's talk about international. In international, from an SME perspective, it's really an open playing field. I mean, when you look at the penetration, I think the market is a couple of percent penetrated. So we have, not only replicated what we have been doing in the United States from a sales force perspective, but a talent perspective, and really engaging from a digital perspective, and that's why you are seeing these growth rates. And so, I am sure, over time, it will become competitive as well, as it's -- we believe it's a huge opportunity, which is why we continue to invest and why we continue to see large growth rates. When you look at the SME segment in United States, it's competitive regionally, and different banks through different banks, because customers mean different things to them. And so we compete regionally. So you will compete with Capital Ones and we will compete with Wells and we will compete with Citi and JPMorgan and so forth. But I would say is that, it is probably not as intense as the competition that we traditionally see in the U.S. consumer business. The other thing is, is that we are truly leveraging scale here. We are leveraging the assets that we have from a large and middle market, and global corporate card perspective, we are leveraging that global footprint, and that's really helping us out. And so, we will continue to do that. I think, if you look at Amazon, you look at Marriott, I will just pick those two out in particular, because they truly had a choice. With the split portfolio with Marriott; Marriott could have gone either with us or with Chase or could have split it and what they like was our assets, our ability to reach small businesses, and so we won that part of the portfolio, and Amazon obviously looked at it the same way. So we are excited about not only the growth opportunities here, but the new partnerships that we really just engaged with. So we are going to continue to aggressively compete in these segments. And the large segment, 9% growth. And so, that's what I have always talked about, when we have had the one-on-one analyst meetings, I have talked about how our value is to really help companies control their spending and reduce their spending. But as Jeff said, we are seeing an uptick in T&E, we are seeing an uptick in sort of airline spending, and we are winning more accounts. So we believe, our -- we play really well in this space, and we are going to continue to compete very vigorously, as we move forward.

Thanks.

And we have a question from the line of Moshe Orenbuch with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. So maybe, could you talk a little about how we should think about the provision and reserve build over the course of the next year? Just given, you have still got 30% plus growth in losses on both the charge and the credit portfolios, and this quarter is a fairly small build. But if the double digit loan growth continues, like how should we think about that?

Well, so if you think about it, Moshe, we went into this year with a very clear expectation. We communicated publicly that we thought provision would grow 30%, given the growth we have seen and the -- very importantly, as you would understand, the accelerating growth that you have seen over the last few years, as we go through a seasoning process on some of the vintages from the last couple of years, and that's playing out actually a little better than we thought. So our loan growth is a little higher than we expected. Provision is coming in right where we thought this year, and so we feel very comfortable and good about the trends, and we feel good about the overall economics. I'd also make the point that, I think you can kind of see this, if you look at the provision slide. When you think about 38% for the year, in 2017, the first two quarters were much lower than you had kind of a step up, as we started building reserves. So that factors into a little bit of the trend I would expect for the next two quarters. Now once you get beyond 2018, look, we will have to see at what rate loan growth continues to perform. I mean, I don't want to govern our team, I want to pursue as much really good, really economic, through the cycle loan growth, as we can achieve, particularly with the focus we have on our existing customers. So depending on if that happens to be in 2019, we will have to see exactly what it means for provision. And what we feel comfortable with is, we are getting really good, through the cycle economics, even net of the provisions that -- when you are accelerating growth, you have to billed.

Thanks very much.

Thanks Moshe.

And our next question will come from the line of Chris Donat with Sandler O'Neill. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my question. Jeff, I wanted to ask one question on Australia of all places. Just because I am trying to understand the dynamic there. I thought you said that billed business was up 20% year-on-year in Australia. But then you got the headwinds from GNS. Is there something in the dynamic or we are going to lap a pricing?

Chris, I should probably clarify that. So to remind everyone, what's going on in Australia, is with the latest round of regulatory changes, we are in the process of shutting down our network business. So we had some great bank partnerships that are slowly going away, and so that's why, when you look at the GNS business, it is shrinking in Australia, and will eventually shrink to essentially zero. But that very fact is creating some really interesting growth opportunities for us on what -- the term we use as, our proprietary side, where we are the card issuer, including a co-brand, that we have launched with one of our former network bank partners, WestPac. So that is fuelling really-really high growth rates for us in Australia, over 20% is the number I cited. And I'd just remind everyone, that when you replace a dollar of network billings with a dollar of proprietary billings, that is a really-really good trade economically. So in some ways, this is just a commentary on the flexibility of our business model, as the world changes competitively or from a regulatory perspective. But I'd say, we feel good about the overall trends in Australia.

Okay. And that you got a decent runway to grow the business, as you move more proprietary in Australia; because there had been, I think in the past, you disclosed that Australia was, I want to say like 4% to 5% of revenues, or when you did sort of FX exposure, it was in one of your larger markets at least?

Yeah. You know, Australia is one of the five or six markets that are very significant to us outside. When you look at our non-U.S. results, you can pick eight or 10 markets and that's most of the economics in Australia would be near the top of that list.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you. And our last question will be from the line of Craig Maurer with Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.

Hey Craig.

Hi. How are you?

Good.

Wanted to drill down if I can, a little bit on what you are seeing in the U.S., from our vantage point, we have seen deceleration in all your competitors in U.S. and their U.S. purchase volume. You guys have done an amazing job sustaining growth. So I guess, the question begs, who are you taking share from and in what categories in the U.S.?

From an SME perspective, we continue to grow and even large market customers are even growing, because if you look at sort of large market global results in the U.S., just look at it sort of a year ago, these were sort of stagnant numbers for us. And our consumer business, we feel really good. I mean, we feel really good about the U.S. consumer business. Double digit growth two quarters in a row, and we feel good about the co-brand partnerships that we just announced and launched obviously, two of them. So look, with the network to report, I guess, next week, we will find out sort of where we are from a share perspective, at least, directionally. And look, you have seen Citi and JPM and U.S. Bank and so forth reports. So you can sort of look at their results and our results and you can make your own assertion of just where it may be coming from.

All right. Thank you.

Okay. So anyway, thank you everybody for participating today, and let me just give a couple of closing thoughts. Hopefully, what you have seen as a globally integrated payments company here, our business model and we hope that the commentary did this today, does set us apart from the card issuing and merchant acquiring competitors. I think Saks is a really great example of just what we can do, with relationships on both parts. It's different in the networks and it's certainly different in the pure Fintechs, which really don't have either relationships, the brand or the scale to do some of the things that we have been doing. We operate, we believe in an industry that has a long runway for growth, and we think that differentiated business model that we had, will provide us with many ways to take advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead. We feel good about the results we have generated, by focusing on the four strategic imperatives that Jeff and I discussed, not only in our prepared remarks, but certainly through the questions. And again, just once again, thanks for all of you for joining us today and for your continued interest in American Express.

With that, we will bring the call to an end. Thank you, Jeff and Steve, and thank you to those of you on the phone. The IR team will be available for any follow-up questions. Operator, back to you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using the AT&T executive teleconference service. You may now disconnect.