2025-05-29 American Express Company (AXP) Bernstein 41st Annual Strategic Decisions Conference (Transcript)
American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) Bernstein 41st Annual Strategic Decisions Conference May 29, 2025 2:30 PM ET
Company Participants
Steve Squeri - CEO
Conference Call Participants
Rob Wildhack - Autonomous Research
Rob Wildhack
All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining. My name is Rob Wildhack. I cover consumer finance in the cards here at Autonomous. We are very excited to have Steve Squeri back with us today. Steve is the CEO and Chairman of American Express. Those are roles he's held since 2018. Steve is also a 40-year veteran of the company, so congratulations on that milestone, Steve.
大家下午好，感谢各位参加会议。我是Rob Wildhack，负责Autonomous机构内的消费金融和信用卡领域。我们非常高兴今天再次请到Steve Squeri加入我们。Steve是美国运通（American Express）的董事长兼首席执行官，自2018年以来一直担任该职务。他也是公司任职40年的资深人士，Steve，恭喜你达成这一里程碑！
Steve Squeri
Thank you.
谢谢你。
Rob Wildhack
We have Pigeonhole for the Q&A, so you can submit your questions there directly. You can vote on questions that have already been submitted and then we can get them up to Steve. But now we can get started.
我们这次的问答环节使用 Pigeonhole 平台，大家可以直接在上面提交问题，也可以为已经提交的问题投票，我们会把高票问题交给Steve来解答。现在我们正式开始。
Steve, you highlighted in your Annual Letter this year that, this is Amex's one 175th anniversary, which is quite an achievement on its own. Many high-end brands, they come and they go, but American Express over almost two centuries has not wavered. Why is that? What is it about the Amex brand that's led to that staying power?
Steve，你在今年的年度信中强调，今年是美国运通成立175周年，这是非常了不起的成就。很多高端品牌来来去去，但美国运通在近两个世纪里始终屹立不倒。这背后是什么原因？美国运通的品牌为什么能持续这么久？
Steve Squeri
Well, thanks for having Amex here today and me in particular. Look, 175 years, not a lot of companies are around that long. And I think you have to go back in our history, we started as a freight forwarding company. And we were FedEx before. FedEx was FedEx basically, except we did it on horses.
感谢你们今天邀请美国运通，特别是我本人出席。你看，175年，不是很多公司能存续这么久的。我们要回到公司的起点来看，我们最初是做货运代理的。从某种意义上讲，我们在FedEx还没出现之前就像是早期的FedEx，只不过我们当时用的是马匹运输。
And then, we moved through and got into financial services with money orders and traveler's checks and then in travel and so forth. But if you look at the history, I think it's always been about customer focused innovation. And I think that's what's really been important. If you look at American Express, American Express has always been focused on not only, what the current customer needs are, but what the future customer needs could be.
后来我们逐步进入金融服务领域，推出了汇票、旅行支票，后来也进入了旅游行业。如果你回顾整个发展历程，你会发现我们始终坚持以客户为中心的创新精神。我认为这是最关键的地方。美国运通一直关注的不仅是当前客户的需求，还在思考未来客户的潜在需求。
And there was a lot of foresight over the history of the company in terms of getting into the travel business, when the railroads nationalized, because that really killed our delivery business. And you think about the decision that we made to get into the credit card business, when we were basically dominating the traveler's check business. And thank god that decision was made, because not a lot of people are using traveler's checks today.
公司历史上也体现了很多前瞻性的决策。比如，当铁路实现国有化的时候，那实际上终结了我们的快递业务，所以我们转向旅游业务。再比如，在我们几乎垄断旅行支票市场的时候，决定进入信用卡业务。还好我们当时做出了这个决定，因为现在几乎没人再用旅行支票了。
也做过不少的错误决策，比如多元化，金融超市，券商、基金，等等。
So the company was very focused on not only dealing with the needs at that particular point in time, but also dealing with needs moving forward. And if you look at, sort of the last seven, eight years, as we have really looked to reinvent the company, and I think we'll talk about this a little bit later, but as we've changed our focus, right? We've changed our focus to become much more of a revenue-first company.
所以，公司一直非常注重应对当时的市场需求，同时也致力于满足未来的需求。再看看最近七八年，我们努力对公司进行重塑，我们稍后也许会谈到这一点。我们已经转变了战略重点，从以前的模式转向现在更强调“以收入为先”的发展导向。
We've changed our focus in terms of our product strategy, how we refresh products and also from what -- and we've expanded our TAM right? I mean, we're really focused on millennials and Gen Z. Not that we're not focused on the Gen Xers and the Boomers, but we've done that as well. And I think those are the things over time that have really been the hallmark of the company. It is willing to adapt, adjust and be flexible to meet customer needs.
我们的产品战略也发生了变化，包括产品的更新方式。此外，我们也扩大了目标市场（TAM）。我们确实更加聚焦于千禧一代和Z世代。当然，我们并没有忽视X世代和婴儿潮一代，只是我们现在做得更全面。我认为，这些正是美国运通的标志性特征：始终能够适应、调整和灵活应对客户需求。
Question-and-Answer Session
问答环节
Q - Rob Wildhack
You hit on the refresh cycle, but another recent theme has been, a demographic shift where Amex is now incredibly relevant with, and valued by younger consumers, millennial and Gen Z, as well as the older cohort. How have you been able to be so successful with such a variety of customers?
你刚才提到了产品更新周期，另一个近期的重要主题是客户群体的变化——现在美国运通在年轻消费者中（千禧一代和Z世代）极具相关性和价值感，同时也受到年长群体的青睐。你们是如何做到同时赢得这么多不同类型客户的？
Steve Squeri
I think that, as we sat back and looked at it, and I remember when I first took over, a lot of the questions was, was American Express going to be able to have its staying power? Because our customer base was a little bit older, a little bit male dominated, and but the reality was if you looked at our products, our products spoke to many different people, but we just didn't market them that way.
我认为，当我们静下心来反思时，我记得我刚刚接任CEO时，外界很多疑问是：美国运通还能否保持长期的竞争力？因为当时我们的客户群相对年长，而且以男性为主。但实际上，如果你看看我们的产品，它们本身是适用于很多不同类型用户的，只是我们当时的市场宣传方式没有体现这一点。
And so, when you think about the products and the services that we had, they were just as relevant for millennials and Gen Zers as they were for Xers and for Boomers. And, if you go back to 2019, we probably had about 18% of our volume with millennial and Gen Zers. And I think in the last quarter, it was like 35%, growing at a 15% clip. And the reality is, what we really did was just expand the aperture to value proposition.
所以，当你重新审视我们的产品和服务时，你会发现它们对千禧一代和Z世代的吸引力和对X世代及婴儿潮一代一样强。如果你回到2019年，我们与千禧一代和Z世代相关的业务量占比大约是18%，而在最近一个季度已经达到35%，而且还在以15%的速度增长。实际上，我们做的事情就是扩大了价值主张的适用范围。
脑残的说法到处说，这是自然的规律，所有人每过1年都年长1岁。
And when you think about it, we were focused on bringing people into the franchise, with a product, a cash back product that didn't have any other value than cash back. But when you look at today's consumer, when they're 18 to 41, 42 now, there is value conscious and as circumspect about the products and services that they use as anybody else. And they really know-how to use the products and engage with the products, and that has really helped.
当时我们的策略是用返现类产品来吸引用户进入我们的体系，这类产品除了返现没有其他附加价值。但你看看今天的消费者，年龄在18到41、42岁之间的年轻人，他们非常看重性价比，对于所使用的产品和服务都非常慎重，而且他们也更懂得如何使用这些产品、如何参与互动，这一点对我们帮助很大。
The reality is millennials and Gen Zs love to travel. Our product was travel focused, and yet we continue to add other services to that. And so, when you look at the customers that we acquire now, especially on a global basis, 60% are millennial and Gen Z. When you look at the gold and platinum card in the U.S., that's a 75% is millennial and Gen Z.
现实是，千禧一代和Z世代非常热爱旅行，而我们的产品本身就是以旅行为核心的，此外我们还不断在此基础上增加新的服务。所以你现在看我们的新客户构成，尤其是在全球范围内，有60%是千禧一代和Z世代；如果看美国市场的金卡和白金卡，这一比例甚至达到75%。
So, it's not that we're not interested in Gen X and we're not interested in Boomers, but the acquisition has really spoken. The interesting thing is, even as we have morphed the value proposition, to speak a lot more to younger people, and I wouldn't say, it's morphed as much as promoted it to younger people, our retention rates with our older cohorts have increased. So, the product does speak to a wider TAM at this particular point in time.
所以这并不是说我们不关注X世代和婴儿潮一代，只是客户获取数据已经说明了一切。有意思的是，尽管我们调整了价值主张以更好地与年轻人沟通——我更愿意说是“更有力地推广”，而非“根本性的改变”——但我们在年长用户群体中的客户留存率反而提高了。因此，现在我们的产品能够覆盖更广泛的目标市场（TAM）。
Rob Wildhack
And a big part of all that and maybe the foundation is the closed loop network that Amex has. I mean, talk to us about how the closed loop network underpins all of this and what does it allow you to do that drives all these benefits and advantages that you've highlighted so far?
在这一切背后，或者说最根本的支撑，是美国运通拥有的“闭环网络”（closed loop network）。你能否讲讲这个闭环网络是如何支撑起所有这些优势和成就的？它具体帮助你们实现了哪些能力？
Steve Squeri
Yes. So I mean, the closed loop network is really key. And fundamentally what it means is, we have the merchant relationship and we have the cardholder relationship and we're able to connect them. So what does that do for you?
当然可以。闭环网络确实至关重要。它的核心含义是，我们既掌握商户关系，也掌握持卡人关系，而且我们能把这两者连接起来。那这样会带来什么好处呢？
Well, what it does is, it gives you more data, it gives you more information, not only from a credit and fraud perspective, which is why we're the best in the industry on that, but it also gives you more information from a marketing perspective. But what I don't think people realize is that, the way I like to think about the closed loop, the closed loop is like the Autobahn. Okay? You put a go kart on the Autobahn, it's a go kart. You put a Mercedes or BMW and Audi, it'll open up and go.
首先，它会带来更多数据、更多信息——不仅是信用和欺诈防范方面的数据（这也是我们在行业里表现最出色的原因之一），还包括营销方面的信息。但我认为很多人没有真正意识到的是：我喜欢用一个比喻来解释闭环网络，它就像德国的高速公路（Autobahn）。你把一辆卡丁车放上去，它还是一辆卡丁车。但如果你放上一辆奔驰、宝马或奥迪，那这条路就能真正发挥威力。
Our premium customer base is that Mercedes and that Audi and that BMW. And that's what really powers the closed loop network. What really powers the closed loop network is the premium customer base. And when you look at our customers, 55% of our U.S. card customers make over $200,000 a year. Those are customers that our merchants want to connect to. That's why they provide offers.
而我们的高端客户群，就相当于是那些奔驰、奥迪和宝马。真正驱动这个闭环网络的是这些高质量的客户群体。举例来说，我们在美国的持卡人中，有55%的年收入超过20万美元——这是商户们最想接触的客户群体，也正因为如此，商户愿意通过我们平台提供各种优惠。
腾讯以游戏而不是以电商为主营是更聪明的战略，卖的都是自己生产的东西。
So having the merchant and card member relationship is really nice. Having the merchant and card member relationship with premium customers at scale, that is the differentiator. So when you look at trying to replicate that, the way you have to replicate that is not by putting go karts on them. You got to put Audi's and you got to put Mercedes and BMWs on that.
拥有商户和持卡人的双边关系已经是一项优势，而当你拥有的是规模化的高端客户与商户的连接，那就是真正的差异化所在。你想复制这种模式，不是靠把一堆“卡丁车”放上去，而是要放上奥迪、奔驰、宝马这样的“高端车型”。
And that's what we tend to do and that's what our merchants want to see. And that's why we're able to get value from merchants, who want to connect with these premium customers who are going to spend more money with them.
而这正是我们一直在做的，也是商户真正想看到的。这也是我们能从商户那里获得价值的原因——因为他们想连接的就是这些愿意、也有能力高消费的高端客户。
Rob Wildhack
The secret sauce is not just the closed loop network or the premium customer base, but the intersection of the two.
真正的“秘诀”不仅仅是闭环网络，也不仅是高端客户群体，而是这两者的交汇点。
Steve Squeri
It absolutely is the intersection of the two. And here's another interesting point. The other interesting point is, we've tried to replicate that again with Resy. And so, if you take Resy, Resy becomes a closed loop within the closed loop, where we're connecting diners and we're connecting restaurateurs. And the interesting part about Resy is, we've launched it and continue to promote it as an open platform with a closed component.
你说得完全对，确实是两者的交汇才是关键。这里还有一个很有意思的例子，就是我们在 Resy 平台上所做的尝试。Resy 就是一个“闭环中的闭环”——我们在这个平台上连接了消费者和餐厅。而Resy最特别的一点是，我们把它定位成一个“开放平台中的闭环”，持续以这种模式推广。
字节、腾讯在短视频中加了“商品橱窗”，利用推荐引擎打造“开放平台中的闭环”，是更现代化的做法。
So, we have a closed loop, which is federated and open, but then within it, we have a closed loop within that closed loop for our cardholders. So what does that do? What that does is it wants more restaurants to come in and it helps us to acquire more card members, who get special offers from that restaurant.
我们有一个整体上是联通且开放的闭环网络，而在其中，我们又为持卡人打造了一个专属的“闭环中的闭环”。这有什么意义？它能吸引更多餐厅加入平台，同时也有助于我们拓展更多持卡用户，因为他们可以从这些合作餐厅中享受特别优惠。
And so if you think about that closed loop within a closed loop, we think about travel and our travel business within a closed loop like that, that helps power the over earnings power of the company.
你想想这个“闭环中的闭环”模式，我们其实也在旅游业务中使用类似的思路。这种模式正是推动公司整体盈利能力持续增强的重要驱动力。
Rob Wildhack
And you've put out an aspirational target to grow revenue at 10%. The ingredients there being high single-digits billings growth, continued card fee growth and lending that I believe grows faster, slightly faster than billings. Mean, let's start with billings. How much more space is there to grow billings at an above industry pace?
你们也提出了一个有抱负的目标：实现10%的收入增长。其驱动因素包括高个位数的账单增长、持续增长的年费收入，还有贷款收入，我理解贷款增长的速度会比账单略快。那我们从账单开始聊起——你认为在账单增长方面还有多少空间能保持高于行业的速度？
Steve Squeri
Yes. Look, I think there is a lot more room. I mean, the great part about our business and the people that are in this business, this is a TAM that grows year-after-year in mid to high digits single-digits. So that's really good. If you look at our U.S. consumer business, it's grown on a CAGR of 10.5% since 2019. And so, we've outgrown the industry from that perspective.
当然，我认为我们还有很大的成长空间。我们所在的市场及人群组成本身就是一个每年都能保持中高个位数增长的整体市场规模（TAM），这本身就是优势。举个例子，美国的个人业务自2019年以来的年复合增长率（CAGR）达到了10.5%，我们在这一点上已经超越了行业整体。
When you look at our penetration in that space, we only have about 5% of the accounts in the United States and we have about 25% of the fee-paying accounts in the United States. So, I think there's room there. Internationally, in our top five markets, we probably only have no more than 6% market share, and we're continuing -- and we're growing billings at double-digits, right? And so, and then, you look at it and we're increasing coverage.
再看看我们在市场的渗透率：我们在美国市场的账户占比大概只有5%，但付费账户的占比却达到约25%。这说明还有增长空间。在国际市场方面，在我们最重要的五个国家中，我们的市占率普遍不超过6%，而我们的账单金额正在以双位数增长。与此同时，我们的商户覆盖率也在不断扩大。
简单的利用定位取胜，而不是任何其他的因素，包括努力，但不是这个CEO能理解的。
And so, coverage continues to increase. So we're really bullish that we can continue to grow billings. Now, we'll probably talk about SME at some point, and the SME piece has been a little bit more flattish and I think we'll dive into that a little bit later. But there, it's flattish at a higher percentage of billings than our competitors would have.
所以我们的网络覆盖还在扩展，这使我们对账单增长前景充满信心。当然我们之后可能会谈到中小企业（SME）业务，目前这块的增长相对平稳，但即便如此，它在我们账单中的占比也远高于同行水平，稍后我们可以再详细展开讲这部分。
Rob Wildhack
I've got to zoom in a little bit while we're on the consumer. Any update you want to give us on the state of spending as you see it now and recently?
我们再深入聊聊消费端吧。你是否可以和我们更新一下你目前观察到的消费趋势？最近的消费情况如何？
Steve Squeri
Yes. I think I'll give the same update that everybody else has been giving on the last -- I think I'm probably one of the last ones here. But it's been consistent, right? It's really been consistent. What we've seen through May is what we saw through April and what we saw in March and in the first quarter. And so, goods and services consistent. Airline pretty consistent and we said that was down a little bit. I think lodging gets a little more challenged, but restaurants still very, very strong.
可以，我想我大概和其他人给出的更新差不多，我可能是这轮更新中最后一个发言的了。总体来说非常一致，非常稳定。我们在5月份看到的消费趋势和4月、3月以及第一季度看到的基本一致。商品和服务消费稳定，航空消费也差不多，之前我们提到略有下滑。住宿方面稍显压力大一些，但餐饮消费依然非常强劲。
And if you look at the individual segments international, SME and U.S. consumer pretty consistent to where they are. So, unless something crazy happens in June, I think when we start talking about this in July, we're going to say, the second quarter pretty much looked just like the first quarter did, FX adjusted and all that other kind of stuff.
从各个细分板块看，无论是国际市场、中小企业还是美国个人消费者，这些板块的趋势也都保持稳定。所以，除非6月出现什么意外情况，否则等我们7月再来回顾第二季度时，估计还是会说它跟第一季度基本一样——无论是按固定汇率调整还是其他因素来看，差别不大。
Rob Wildhack
Leap year adjusted too, right, right?
包括闰年的调整，对吧？
Steve Squeri
Yes.
没错。
Rob Wildhack
Okay. On card fees, you always emphasize pricing your products for value. And we talked a little bit about the different demographics, but the different generations, they like and value different things. You have an Uber Eats reward on there. I use Uber Eats all the time, my dad certainly wouldn't. So, is that something that gets harder as the demographic base diversifies and the annual fee keeps increasing? How do you make sure that each different demographic, who presumably likes a few different things gets enough value out of the card?
那说到年费，你们一直强调“按价值定价”。我们之前也聊到过不同年龄段的客户，他们的偏好和价值观差异很大。比如你们现在有 Uber Eats 的权益，我自己经常用，但我爸肯定不会用。那随着客户群体的多元化、年费水平又在提高，这种情况会不会越来越难处理？你们是如何确保不同人群都能从产品中获得足够的价值感的？
Steve Squeri
Yes. It actually doesn't get that much harder. I think, as we think about refreshing products, again, I'll go back to that Autobahn example. We have a lot of people coming to us that want to put value on the cards. And so, it's really about us picking and choosing what we want to do. But, just to pick on the Uber benefit, which, does he take taxis or I know he just apparently doesn't eat delivery, but so you could use that.
其实没有变得那么困难。我们在思考产品更新时，我还是要回到“高速公路”那个比喻。我们有很多合作方希望把他们的价值权益放到我们的卡片中，所以关键是我们如何筛选和取舍。拿 Uber 的权益来说吧，你父亲可能不点外卖，但他可能打车，对吧？那他一样可以用得上。
But that is obviously millennial and Gen Zs use that. Ironically, Gen Xs use it just as much as they do and boomers about half the time, right? But that's just one benefit. And, if you look at our product set, when you look at the platinum card, it's pretty much targeted at people that travel and you have value around that.
当然，Uber权益显然最受千禧一代和Z世代欢迎。但有意思的是，X世代的使用率几乎和他们一样，婴儿潮一代的使用频率也有一半之多。但这只是众多权益中的一个。比如白金卡，主要就是面向有旅行需求的客户，因此围绕旅行设计了很多价值权益。
You look at the gold card and the gold card has really become the dining product, with the global dining collection, the Dunkin' Donut benefit, which has been unbelievable as our Dunkin' Donut spending has gone up almost 55%. It's a lot of donuts. Although it's hard to get a donut at Dunkin' Donuts, there's more coffee now right? Than donuts.
再比如金卡，它现在已经成为我们定位“餐饮”的主打产品，像全球美食精选计划，还有 Dunkin' Donuts 的权益——这项权益的效果非常惊人，我们在这方面的消费支出上涨了将近55%。是的，真的买了很多甜甜圈。虽然现在去 Dunkin' 买甜甜圈已经没那么容易了，那家店现在主要是卖咖啡，对吧（笑）。
But anyway, when you look at that, what we're really trying to do is continue to add, so that people can pick and choose what's right for them. And so, when you look at a product that's $6.95 and $3.5 whatever it might be, you want to make sure you're adding more and more value. If you decide you're going to raise it, you add even a lot more value than you have, than you're going to raise the fee.
不管怎样，我们真正想做的是持续增加权益内容，让用户能够挑选适合自己的权益。你看一张年费 $695 或 $350 的卡，我们一定要确保赋予它足够多的价值。如果我们计划提高年费，那我们必须提供比涨价幅度更多的额外价值。
And you have to make sure that, because not everybody is going to use every single benefit. We know that going in. But by having an array of benefits for people, what happens is, people can pick and choose. And again, you're picking a platinum card because you travel. You're going to use fine hotels and resorts and that stuff that does make a difference. I mean, you get like 1,500 fine hotels and resorts, early check-in, late checkout, $100 credit, breakfast, so forth and so on.
我们也知道，并不是每位用户都会使用所有权益，所以我们设计了一整套权益菜单，供客户按需选择。再次强调，比如你选择白金卡，很大可能是因为你经常旅行。那么你就可以用上高端酒店和度假村的权益——比如1500多家优质酒店可选、提前入住、延迟退房、$100消费抵用券、免费早餐等等，这些都是实打实的价值。
And that is a really good value. You booked twice with us and you've paid for your platinum card fee, and that's not even in sort of that implied value in terms of the credits and things like that.
这些价值是真的划算。你只要通过我们预订酒店两次，基本就可以“赚回”白金卡的年费了——而这还不包括其他额外返现或信用额度带来的隐性价值。
扯来扯去都是软件能力不行，推荐引擎+电商，成熟的方案已经有了，怎么执行是两个障碍，一是品味，如何引入已有系统；二是落地，两个都很难。
Rob Wildhack
Yes. Okay. And then the last ingredient to the 10% revenue growth is on the lending side. I mean, you've seen eager to lean into lending for some time, but a common point of pushback that we would hear from investors is that, doing too much lending can get too risky, or it could be multiple dilutive. I mean to the people who say that, what are they overlooking?
好，那说到10%收入增长的最后一个组成部分——贷款业务。你们一直在积极扩展信贷，但投资人常见的担忧是：贷款做得太多风险会太高，或者会稀释估值倍数。你怎么看待这种观点？你觉得他们忽视了什么？
Steve Squeri
Don't say that. You should.
别这么说（笑），你应该反驳他们。
Rob Wildhack
None of them are in this room. Okay.
他们今天都不在现场（笑）。
Steve Squeri
None of them in this room. So here's the way we look at it. We lend money to our cardholders, because they want to borrow. And I'd rather have our cardholders borrow from us, than from our competitors, because once you start borrowing from our competitors then why not just take the card from our competitors as well.
确实，他们今天都不在场（笑）。那我来讲讲我们的看法。我们给持卡人放贷，是因为他们本身就有借款需求。我更希望他们从我们这里借钱，而不是从竞争对手那里借钱——因为一旦他们开始从别家借钱，那为什么不直接用别家的卡呢？
是个好的理由。
The other thing I'd say is, most of our lending is done to existing customers, and our credit profile is pristine, right? I mean, it's beyond reproach, at this particular point in time, and it's been that way for decades. But if you dig into the numbers, you've got to look at a couple of things. Look at our billings growth versus our total loans and receivables growth since 2019, 59% billings growth, 47% loans and receivable growth. That means, the ratio has gotten even better.
再者，我们的大多数贷款都是面向现有客户，而我们的信用风险状况可以说是非常干净，几乎无可指摘——而且几十年来一直如此。如果你深入分析数据，有两个数字必须关注：自2019年以来，我们账单增长了59%，而贷款和应收账款增长了47%。也就是说，我们的贷款与账单之间的比率实际上还变得更健康了。
And then, if you dig into NII and look at it and you say, okay, half of the NII growth is margin. So, how do you get margin? Well, if you look at our funding stack, 20% number of years ago was funded through retail deposits. Now that's 65%. If you look at our pricing capability, it's even more sophisticated. So, really when you look at that NII growth, only half of it is really volume related. The other half is margin related.
再来看净利息收入（NII）。其中一半的增长是来自利差（margin）。那利差从哪来？你看看我们的资金来源结构：几年前只有20%的资金来自零售存款，现在这一比例已经达到65%。我们的定价能力也更强、更精细了。所以NII的增长只有一半是由贷款规模驱动，另一半则是靠利差优化带来的。
And when I look at the margin related piece of it, why wouldn't I take that money? So, I'm not going to apologize for that piece of it. And I think the way to look at it is, what has happened with delinquencies and so forth. And the other thing by putting pay overtime and plan it and things like that on it, that is driving a little bit more of our loan growth and receivables. So we feel really good about it.
对我来说，这部分利差收益非常可观——为什么不赚这部分钱呢？所以我绝不会为此感到抱歉。我认为大家应该关注的是违约率等风险指标的变化。还有，我们的“延期付款”和“分期支付”等产品，也推动了一部分贷款和应收账款的增长——这部分我们感到非常有信心。
We don't do balance transfers. We don't get outside of our credit box. So I think that's -- you've really got to ask the second and third order questions when you start to get into the lending part of our business. But years ago, we were sort of allergic to it and then you wonder why you don't have these deeper relationships with your customers because they need to do it. And the reality is platinum cardholders will revolve and need that working capital for themselves from time-to-time. And so, we're there to give them that and that's a really good credit decision for us.
我们不做信用卡余额转移（balance transfer），也不会放弃我们严格的风控框架。所以我认为，当你评估我们的贷款业务时，必须问得更深入，进行二阶、三阶层面的分析。过去我们对贷款业务是有些“过敏”的，但后来你就会发现，如果不提供这些服务，就难以和客户建立更深层次的关系——因为他们确实有这方面的需求。现实是，哪怕是白金卡用户，有时也需要“循环信贷”来获得短期资金支持，而我们正好能提供这样的产品，对我们来说，这是一个非常优质的信贷决策。
不用贷款又能把业务做好了是最好的选择，美国移民签证的排期超过10年，特朗普还准备卖500万美元/张。
Rob Wildhack
Your predecessor used to emphasize your best customer is your existing customer, right?
你的前任常说：“你最好的客户就是你现有的客户”，对吧？
Steve Squeri
Yes. He was right and he had a pretty good run. So, we're going to go with that.
对的。他说得很对，而且他做得也非常成功。所以我们当然会坚持这个理念。
Rob Wildhack
Stick with that, okay. In your initial remarks there, you talked about innovation and a big part of the overall Amex value proposition is the differentiated membership model and the customer base, which has created the customer base. So tell us about some of the innovations on the membership services side, that you've made and that you're excited about?
继续保持这个理念哈（笑）。你一开始也提到了“创新”，而美国运通的整体价值主张中，很大一部分是源于差异化的会员模式和由此建立的客户基础。你能跟我们分享一下你们在会员服务方面做了哪些创新，以及你特别看好的项目吗？
Steve Squeri
Well, I think look, what we've done is, as we look at -- just you look at Resy, you look at Tock, you look at those acquisitions and I talked a little bit about that before in terms of creating this closed loop within a closed loop, that's all a card member benefit. The constant investment in our travel business in terms of providing more value to our cardholders there, the lounge investments, which we've got the lounge wars now, right? But, we continue to do that.
是的，我想我们做了很多事情。你看看 Resy，还有 Tock，这些都是我们并购的项目。我之前讲过，我们试图打造“闭环中的闭环”，这些服务都是为持卡人量身定制的会员权益。我们在旅游业务上的持续投资也是一个亮点——为了给持卡人提供更多价值。还有机场贵宾室的投资，现在大家都在抢建贵宾室，我们也在积极扩展这块。
And look, we did Centurion Lounge over at One Vanderbilt, which has been a huge success, as we try and take that to another level experiences, and we do partnerships, we've done Big Formula 1 partnership. It's not about putting our names. I was with Zak Brown from McLaren and just trying to get me to sponsor the car. And I said the only place you have left is the windshield. And I don't think we really want to put Amex across the windshield. It may help put a decal anywhere, that guy. He's phenomenal, but we don't do that.
比如我们在 One Vanderbilt 开设的 Centurion 贵宾室就非常成功，我们希望把这类体验提升到更高层次。还有我们的合作伙伴关系，比如F1合作。我们不是单纯为了贴个 logo。我和迈凯伦的Zak Brown聊天，他还想让我赞助他们赛车。我对他说：“你赛车上唯一剩的位置是挡风玻璃了吧？”我们可不打算在挡风玻璃上贴上“Amex”的标志（笑）。虽然Zak很厉害，但我们不做那种纯粹的广告贴牌。
What we're doing is we're involved with Formula 1, not only to provide tickets, to provide special events, to provide special access, to provide driver access, to do the Formula 1 Academy, to do things like that, that our card members can get excited about and get involved in. And so, as you think about sponsorships, U.S. Open, things like that, that's how we do it. And then, we work with our -- we're working with our merchant partners to provide more and more value in this membership model.
我们参与F1，不是为了打广告，而是要为我们的持卡人提供独家门票、专属活动、后台通道、车手互动、F1学院等特别体验，让他们真正兴奋、真正参与进来。类似的合作还有像美网（U.S. Open）这些赛事，这就是我们的赞助方式。同时我们也持续与商户合作，在这个会员体系里创造更多价值。
新加坡赌场有自己的豪华游艇。
What we're doing is, we're creating that flywheel and the more card members we have, the more merchants we're going to get and the more merchants that want to get to those particular card members. So, it's a lot more of the same that playbook works for us. And I think, the key thing is that, the takeaway here is we're going to continue to invest in that model, because if you don't invest then our competitors will continue to catch-up, and in a lot of cases just replicate what we're doing, and that's why it's really important for us to stay a couple of steps ahead.
我们正在打造的是一个飞轮效应：持卡人越多，吸引的优质商户就越多；商户越多，又能吸引更多想享受这些权益的持卡人。这个策略在过去是有效的，我们会继续坚持。而这里最关键的一点是：我们会持续投入这个会员体系，因为一旦你停止投入，竞争对手就会迎头赶上，甚至直接复制我们的做法。所以我们必须始终领先一步，甚至两步。
Rob Wildhack
Yes. You mentioned the lounge wars and the competitors more broadly a little bit. It's a good segue way to an audience question. I mean, how would you talk or how would you rate the competitive environment today, the core U.S. premium consumer segment?
好，你刚才提到了“贵宾室大战”，也顺带提到了一些竞争对手。正好观众也有相关问题：你如何评价目前美国高端消费市场的竞争环境？特别是你们的核心领域。
Steve Squeri
Yes. I mean, look, it's been a war in that segment since Gordon Smith left American Express. Now he is retired in Florida. But when he first launched [Sapphire] and I've said this, I've said this multiple times. I think it helped us up our game a little bit. It put a great focus on that premium segment. And so, it's intense, but there are a lot of people out there, that want these premium cards, and we punch way above our weight.
是的，这个领域的竞争其实从Gordon Smith离开美国运通、加入摩根大通开始就已经像一场“战争”了。现在他已经退休在佛罗里达了（笑）。但当年他推出[Sapphire]卡时，我多次说过，那其实也“逼”我们提高了自己的水平，让大家都更聚焦于高端客户群体。这是一个竞争激烈的市场，但有很多消费者就是在寻找这类高端卡产品，我们的表现也远超市场份额本身所代表的影响力。
And at the JPM Investor Conference and they've had a great run, but they've clearly said, we're not number one in premium. And Citi is, I think regrouping and Capital One I think will be a little distracted at this point, but with Venture X they've come at us as well.
在摩根大通的投资人会议上，他们也承认，虽然做得不错，但在高端市场上他们不是第一。花旗目前还处于重整阶段；而Capital One 最近虽然略显分心，但他们的 Venture X 卡其实就是直接来抢我们客户的。
And I'm sure Charlie will do some stuff at Wells Fargo. And our perspective is we're ready for all comers. And that's why the refresh is so important for us, because you want to stay on that cycle of constantly refreshing your products, because you have to have new things to introduce to your consumers on an ongoing basis, not only consumers, but small businesses as well. And that's why we've really put a major focus on refreshes since I took over.
我相信富国银行的Charlie也会做一些动作。我们这边的态度是——欢迎所有竞争者。正因为如此，产品“焕新”对我们来说至关重要。你必须不断更新产品，以便持续向消费者推出新东西，不只是面向个人消费者，也包括中小企业客户。这也是我上任以来，为什么会一直把“产品更新”作为优先战略之一的原因。
Rob Wildhack
And then, on the earnings call in April, you mentioned that, the consumer base is not really affected by swings in the stock market or declines in consumer sentiment. I can understand why that's true historically, but does that relationship change at all with the growth with millennials and Gen Z, just because they haven't they don't have the home equity or the savings built up? Are they a little more sensitive there?
你们在4月份的财报电话会上也提到过，贵公司的客户群体通常不会受到股市波动或消费者信心下降的太大影响。历史上我能理解这点，但随着千禧一代和Z世代的比重不断上升，这种关系会不会有所改变？毕竟这些年轻人没有太多房产资产或存款，他们是否会更敏感一些？
Steve Squeri
Yes. So I'll get to the last part of that. The ironic part of that as we do our research is, when you compare Gen Xers of yesteryear to the millennials of today, the millennials of today have more savings than the Gen Xers did at that exact same time, right? So, I don't think that holds. I think that look consumer sentiment is in the toilet but yet they're just complaining as they go spend. That's what we're seeing.
我来回应你最后那个问题。其实很讽刺的是，根据我们的研究，如果你把当年的X世代与现在的千禧一代做对比，会发现今天的千禧一代储蓄反而更多。所以那种说法并不成立。我们现在看到的情况是：虽然消费者信心看起来非常低迷，但大家还是一边抱怨、一边照样花钱——这就是现实。
Rob Wildhack
Watch what they do, not what they say.
看他们怎么做，而不是听他们怎么说。
Steve Squeri
Exactly right. So, they're just complaining as they go spend and that's fine. So, they're just approaching a lot of disgruntled retailers and restaurant tours, but in a disgruntled way. But I think that's okay. And the reality is the stock market has never affected our customer base. What affects our customer base is unemployment, especially white collar unemployment. We saw lots of unemployment during COVID, but that was more service unemployment, hotels, restaurants, things like that.
完全正确。他们确实一边抱怨，一边继续消费——这没有问题。他们可能会以不满的情绪走进零售店或餐馆，但终归还是在消费。我认为这是可以接受的。现实是，股市波动从来不是影响我们客户群体的关键因素。真正影响我们客户群体的是失业，尤其是白领失业。在疫情期间，我们确实看到大量失业，但那更多是服务行业，比如酒店、餐厅等。
And that really wasn't our customer base by and large. So, that's what we do watch out for. And the other thing I'll remind people is that, in stressed times our card members act a lot differently than other cardholders, right? And so, what happens is, when our cardholders get stressed they spend a little bit less. And if they get really stressed and a lot of them have multiple cards and they will pay us first.
而那类行业并不是我们的核心客户群。所以我们最关注的是白领失业的动向。另外我也要提醒大家，在经济压力大的时期，我们的持卡人行为与普通持卡人很不一样。当他们感受到压力时，确实会稍微减少一些消费；但如果遇到更大的财务压力，由于很多人有多张信用卡，他们会优先偿还美国运通的账单。
And we put that fact up, there when we did our investor conference back last April. And so, I think the thing that we really watch is, we really watch unemployment for this, because the stock market up and down, I mean, just look at what's happening with the stock market. As I said to somebody the other day, if you were Rip Van Winkle and went to sleep the day before the election and woke up now, you'd say, I guess nothing happened. Meanwhile, it's been like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, from a stock market perspective, right? So, I don't think people are running their lives like that.
这一点我们在去年4月的投资者会议上也专门展示过。所以我们真正关注的是失业率，尤其是白领失业率。至于股市涨涨跌跌……你看看现在的行情。我前几天跟人开玩笑说，如果你是那个“睡了20年”的Rip Van Winkle，在大选前一天入睡、今天醒来，你可能会说：“看起来好像什么也没发生。”但实际上，这段时间股市就像“蟾蜍先生的疯狂之旅”（Mr. Toad's Wild Ride），跌宕起伏。但人们并不会照着这种情绪波动来安排生活。
Rob Wildhack
Got it, okay. Let's switch over to the U.S. commercial business. What does it take to see an acceleration in spend growth there? And then second question would be, given your share of small business spend today, I mean, how much more opportunity is there to gain share versus this being a business that just grows with the market from here?
明白了。我们现在聊聊美国商业客户业务吧。首先，要实现这部分业务的支出加速增长，需要哪些条件？其次，考虑到你们现在在小企业支出市场的份额，你认为未来还有多少提升空间？还是说这项业务接下来会更多地随着市场自然增长？
Steve Squeri
Yes. I think, look, when we look at small business and we'll ultimately probably provide a lot more color on this going forward, I think SMB is too large to look at. And I think you have to look at the small business and we'll define that by whatever revenue segment we want to and the middle market segment.
好的。我认为，当我们谈论“小企业”（small business）时，需要更具体地拆解来分析。SMB（小微企业）这个整体太大了，我们往后会对这一块提供更多细化信息。我认为你得分开来看：一部分是小企业（我们会按收入规模来界定），另一部分是中型市场客户（middle market segment）。
And I would say, the small business segment is growing, it's vibrant, and it is -- we're acquiring new customers on an ongoing basis. I think when you start to get into the middle-market segment, you have an organic issue. You still have an organic growth issue. And part of that is rightsizing transactions for the right product.
我想说，小企业客户群是健康且充满活力的，我们也在持续不断地获取新客户。但进入中型市场部分后，情况就不一样了。那块还面临着“有机增长”的挑战。部分原因是交易类型和产品之间匹配的问题。
During COVID everything went on the credit card. Once people started spending again everything went on the credit card. Coming out of COVID that behavior didn't change. But as I said, this to my team, the reality is, at American Express, we don't pay Google with the Amex card, but yet a lot of middle market companies were. And that's probably not the right use of the card, when you're thinking about big advertising spend.
在疫情期间，所有支出几乎都通过信用卡完成。疫情后，大家恢复支出，但支付习惯没有变。但我也跟团队讲过一个例子：我们美国运通不会用公司卡去付谷歌广告费——但很多中型企业却这么做了。从用途上讲，那可能不是信用卡的“最佳适配场景”，尤其是这种大额广告投放。
I wouldn't mind it being the right use of the card, but probably not what the card was designed for, right? And so, we're seeing a little bit of that. And you're also seeing a little bit of middle-market companies acting a little bit more like large market companies in terms of really much more focused on expense management than on growth. The other big difference is, the middle-market companies tend not to put their goods for resale on the card whereas small businesses do.
当然，如果能成为合适的使用场景我也不反对（笑），但这确实不是这些卡片最初的设计初衷。所以这方面我们观察到了一些变化。同时，中型企业越来越像大型企业那样，更关注成本管控而非增长目标。还有一个重要差异是：中型企业很少用信用卡支付转售型商品的采购成本，而小企业则经常这么做。
Having said all that, you've got about a 3% growth in the overall commercial business and almost 8% revenue growth, 7.5%, because what happens is we have so many small businesses, you got the fees and you got the lending. And the corporate business is relatively flat at this point. There's not any of you that work for any company of any size, nobody is telling you unfortunately to go out and spend more money on your corporate card. That's not a memo I'm writing. Okay? And probably not a memo that is coming out in your own businesses.
话虽如此，我们整体商业客户的支出增长大约为3%，但收入增长接近8%，约为7.5%。这是因为我们拥有大量小企业客户，可以获得稳定的年费收入和贷款收益。而企业级客户业务（corporate business）目前基本持平。你们当中如果在规模较大的公司工作，应该都没收到“去刷更多公司卡”的指令（笑）。我本人也不会发这种备忘录，相信你们所在的公司也不会。
And so, I wish it was, but it's not and we're not leading like that. And that's what's happening with corporate. That's why the corporate card business kind of stays a little bit flat, kind of moves with inflation.
我当然希望情况不是这样，但事实就是如此，所以我们不会强推那条路线。这就是企业级客户业务的现状——增长基本跟通胀同步，整体维持平稳。
Rob Wildhack
Is there any specific catalyst that would reignite that sort of middle-market organic growth or is it just a matter of time and getting comfortable with sort of economic policy and outlook?
有没有什么特定的催化剂，能够重新激发中型市场客户的自然增长？还是说这只是一个时间问题，等市场对经济政策和前景逐渐适应之后自然会恢复？
Steve Squeri
No, I think it has to reset a little bit still and I think we have to do a better job, and I think we can do a better job in making more B2B transactions viable on the product and viability, meaning from both the customer -- the card member side and the merchant side. And because there is a point there were maybe the right price decisions drive some more volume there. And that's something that we'll ultimately look at to put more volume.
我认为这块市场仍然需要一点“重置”的过程。同时我们自身也需要做得更好——特别是在让更多B2B交易在我们产品体系中变得可行。这里的“可行”，是指既要对持卡客户有吸引力，也要对商户端有意义。可能通过更合理的定价机制，我们能刺激更多交易量。这是我们接下来会重点研究的方向，以推动进一步增长。
Rob Wildhack
And then competitively, in U.S. commercial, you recently bought Center to build out the expense management capabilities. Tell us more about the strategy behind the acquisition and how you're thinking about the offering on an overall basis and a holistic basis for the commercial segment more broadly.
再谈到竞争方面，在美国商业业务这块，你们最近收购了 Center，希望加强费用管理功能。能不能多讲讲这笔收购背后的战略考量？以及你们对整体商业客户解决方案的整体定位是怎样的？
Steve Squeri
Yes. I mean we've been partnering with expense management providers for a long time it became clear that we probably needed our own solution. And maybe it should have been clear a little bit earlier, but we are where we are. I think when you look at Ramp and you look at Brex, they've had this integrated product. And we try to partner with other providers, Concur and some others, and it just became apparent that we needed on our own.
是的，我们和费用管理软件服务商合作了很多年，但后来我们越来越清楚——我们可能需要一个属于我们自己的解决方案。或许这个决定应该更早做出来，但我们现在也算是到了这个阶段。你看看Ramp、Brex这些公司，他们都在提供一体化的产品体验。我们也试过和Concur等合作伙伴联手，但最终还是发现：我们需要有自己的方案。
And so that will be targeted. It will become ultimately part of the Blueprint platform, which also will have on it Amex Pay, it will have, it's got our checking account, it's got access to your card account. It's got a cash flow analysis, it's got working capital integrate travel into that. And so think about that as a platform going forward for small and midsized businesses.
因此这个产品将是有针对性的，并最终整合到我们打造的“Blueprint”平台中。这个平台还包括 Amex Pay、我们的支票账户、信用卡账户管理、现金流分析、营运资金工具，以及与差旅服务的整合。我们设想这是一个面向小型和中型企业的综合平台。
I think ultimately, Center out of the gate as a stand-alone product will be targeted much more at the middle market company, which is really focused a lot more on expense management, and we'll integrate our corporate card into that. So that's it. I mean, the reality is it's a vision for us to buy versus build. It's not our bailiwick is building expense management software. And so we saw Center, we thought Center was -- we had a good tech stack, and so we bought it.
起初，Center 还是一个独立产品，但未来它将更多地面向中型市场企业客户，这类客户对费用管理的关注度非常高。我们会将企业卡整合进这个系统里。总体而言，这是我们“收购而非自建”的策略体现。毕竟开发费用管理软件并不是我们的强项。而我们看到 Center 拥有一套不错的技术架构，于是我们决定将它收购纳入整体布局。
基于CRM的SaaS系统，软件是现代商业的重要因素。
Rob Wildhack
It closed in April?
这笔交易是在四月完成的？
Steve Squeri
Yes.
是的。
Rob Wildhack
They're in-house. Okay. Let's switch over to international. That's an area where billings have been growing quite nicely in the teens. What's the driver behind that? And then how long do you think that's sustainable?
所以他们现在已经整合进来了。好，我们再谈谈国际市场。那部分的账单增长目前保持在十几个百分点的区间，表现相当亮眼。你认为背后的驱动力是什么？这样的增长能持续多久？
Steve Squeri
I think that has a long, long, long tail. International was the fastest-growing part of our business, pre-pandemic during the pandemic, it was the one that was hit and it took the longest to come back because it took a long time for a lot of countries to open. But when you start to look at international, we're pretty much in 15 markets, which represent about 60% of the revenue of the card revenue that's out there.
我认为这个增长趋势会持续很久、很久、很久。疫情前，国际业务是我们增长最快的板块；疫情期间，它又是受到打击最大的板块——因为很多国家恢复开放的节奏非常慢，复苏也最慢。但放眼今天，我们在全球大约15个核心市场开展业务，这些市场合计占全球信用卡收入的约60%。
And when you look at the top 5 markets that we're in, we don't have more than 6% market share. When you look at Canada, Mexico, the U.K., Australia and Japan. There's a lot of opportunity for growth. And premium products play really well internationally.
再看看我们在的前五大市场——加拿大、墨西哥、英国、澳大利亚、日本——我们的市场份额在这些国家都没有超过6%。所以成长空间非常大。而我们的高端产品在这些国际市场也非常受欢迎。
As we continue to increase coverage where we now have over 80% coverage in 12 markets. We've taken a very specific city approach where we've identified approximately 50 cities where we want to get to that 80% coverage number. And we've made a lot of progress against that. And so I think as coverage continue to increase and as we continue to push the product out in the marketplace, I think it's a big, big growth opportunity for us. Not a lot of internationally for us, and you may see a little bit more of that.
我们正在持续扩大商户网络的覆盖，目前在12个市场覆盖率已超过80%。我们采取的是“特定城市战略”：锁定约50个关键城市，目标是在这些城市达到80%的覆盖率。目前我们在这方面已取得显著进展。随着覆盖率的进一步提升和产品在当地市场的不断推广，我认为国际市场是我们未来极具潜力的增长引擎。我们在国际业务方面的布局还不算多，未来大家可能会看到我们更多的动作。
But right now, we're focused on not only small business, which is growing at the same rate as our consumer businesses internationally, and that's a real nascent business over there. There's nobody that's out there that's dominating that business. And so I think there's a lot of opportunity for growth in international.
目前我们不仅关注个人消费者业务，还重点推进小企业业务——在国际市场，这两个板块的增长速度几乎相同。而且在海外，小企业金融服务仍属于初期发展阶段，没有任何一家企业在这方面占据主导地位。所以我认为国际市场的成长潜力依然非常大。
Rob Wildhack
There's a less lending internationally? Is that a structural thing? International consumers don't demand --
国际市场上的信贷业务好像比较少？这是结构性的问题吗？是不是海外消费者对信贷本身需求就低？
Steve Squeri
I mean if you go market-to-market, it's very, very different. You go to Germany. I mean everything is debit. You go to different -- and in some markets, you just don't have -- you have thin credit files and you just don't want to get involved in it. But consumer debt is a real U.S. phenomenon, right? It's not necessarily an international phenomenon as much. We have some lending in business, U.K. business and so forth. But you're going to Japan, it's not a big lending market, right?
确实，国际各个市场差异非常大。比如德国，基本上所有消费都用借记卡。在一些市场，你会发现消费者的信用记录很薄弱，根本没有足够数据支撑信贷业务，所以我们也不会贸然涉足。消费信贷其实是一个非常“美国式”的现象，在国际市场上远没有那么普遍。我们在英国有一些信贷业务，主要是面向企业客户。但比如在日本，那边就不是一个大的信贷市场。
除美国以外都是压制个性、压制消费的制度。
Rob Wildhack
Yes. Okay. And then let's move over to VCE and marketing expenses to -- I'll start with the first one. VCE is a metric that, as a percentage of revenue, it's increased quite a bit since pre-pandemic time. I know that as you add value to the card VCE should increase, too. But is there a limit to where that line makes sense as a percentage of revenue relative to sort of the low-40%? And then similar question, but why is 42%, 43% sort of the right level or the optimal level?
了解。那我们来谈谈VCE（会员奖励及客户服务支出）和市场营销费用吧。首先，VCE这个指标占收入的比例，自疫情前以来有显著上升。我知道随着你们为卡片增加价值，VCE自然也会上升。但它在收入中占比是否有一个合理上限？比如40%出头这个水平。另外，为什么42%、43%会被看作一个合理或最佳区间？
Steve Squeri
Well, I think the first thing that's really important is VCE is it's something we strive for as an output. It's a result of the actions that we take. We don't set a goal and can work our way back. And so sometimes it's 42%, sometimes it's 41%, sometimes it's 43%. And it has to be taken into context of the entire expense base that we have, right? Because when you hire VCE, you sometimes don't need to spend as much in marketing.
首先很重要的一点是：VCE 是我们行为的结果，而不是我们事先设定的目标。它是一个“输出值”，不是“目标值”。所以有时是42%，有时是41%，有时是43%，要结合整体支出结构来看才有意义。因为如果你的VCE高了，可能就不需要在营销上投入那么多。
You'll get more revenue out of your cardholders. You get better credit quality, you get more efficiency in your acquisition. And so a lot of times, when you re-launch a product, then it has potentially more VCE and the relative scale of how much VCE is in a product goes anywhere from 25% to 60% depending upon its cash-back product or a co-brand product, then you got proprietary products in there as well.
你会从持卡人那里获得更多收入，信用质量更好，获客效率也更高。很多时候，当我们重新推出一款产品时，其VCE水平可能会更高。具体数值从25%到60%不等，这取决于是返现卡、联名卡，还是我们自己的专属产品。
And so you have to look at that in the context of your entire expense base of how you want to allocate your money because the more value you put in the product, maybe the less the less rewards you need to offer from an incentive perspective to acquire a cardholder, right?
所以你得从整体支出的角度来看资金分配问题。你在产品中赋予的价值越高，可能就越不需要靠额外奖励来吸引客户入手，对吧？
Because it just makes a lot of sense, which is why you'll see a lot of times when we launch a product, the VCE works a lot harder for us than it works on a normal basis. So I don't know what the right level of number is. But I think what you have to just focus on is, for us, is that our ultimate goal is to deliver mid-teens EPS growth, and it's all a combination of the marketing dollars, the OpEx the tech spend and so forth.
这其实非常合理。这也是为什么你会看到我们在推出新产品时，VCE的“杠杆效应”往往比平时更明显。所以我不会说VCE的最佳比例是多少。但你需要关注的是：我们最终的目标是实现每股收益（EPS）中双位数增长，而VCE只是整个组合中的一部分，还包括市场营销、运营支出、科技投入等多个因素。
Rob Wildhack
Okay. And then on the marketing side, you've often highlighted that as an area you can flex lower in the event of a downturn. I mean, I'd imagine there's a certain level of marketing spend that you need to sustain this longer-term growth algorithm. So how do you think about balancing those 2? And then versus the $6 billion plus you've been calling for, for marketing for this year, where is the bottom line in terms of what's necessary to sustain the growth trajectory?
好的，那再聊聊营销支出这块。你们经常强调，如果经济下行，这部分预算是可以灵活调整的。但我想，为了维持长期增长模式，总得保持一定的营销投入吧？你们是如何在“灵活调整”和“长期增长”之间取得平衡的？还有你们今年计划超过60亿美元的营销支出，这笔预算的底线是多少，才能支持你们的增长轨迹？
Steve Squeri
Yes. And this gets a little bit back to the VCE question because it works in concert. But here's what I will say, I'm not going to flex that marketing line to make an EPS number. This is not how we run the company, right? So when we talk about that flexibility, we talk about that flexibility in terms of if we need to potentially invest in other areas. So if we need to invest in technology or we need to invest a little bit more in OpEx, we can flex that charge the business with more efficiency.
对，这其实和我们刚才谈到的VCE（会员服务支出）是相辅相成的。但我想明确一点：我们不会为了达成EPS目标而去随意压缩营销预算——那不是我们运营公司的方式。我们所谓“灵活调整”的意思是：如果其他方面（比如科技投入或运营支出）需要更多预算，我们可以从营销这边调一些资金过去，用更高效的方式支撑业务发展。
But the interesting thing is when times get a little uncertain or a little tougher, you don't have as much line of sight into acquiring good cardholders or upgrading existing cardholders. So it becomes a self-regulating line to a large extent.
但有意思的是，当外部环境变得不确定或更具挑战性时，我们对新增优质持卡人或升级现有客户的“视野”会变窄很多——所以某种程度上，营销预算会自我调节。
And so what happens is if you're not meeting the ROI threshold, we're not going to spend the marketing dollars. So I wouldn't think of it as a slush fund. That's not the way we want you to think about it. I would think about it as a number that we have out there that is driving that growth that we do have the opportunity to flex up or flex down depending upon the line of sight that we see into it.
如果我们预期ROI达不到标准，我们就不会花这笔营销费用。所以这不是一笔可以随便挥霍的“临时资金池”，我们不希望大家那样看待它。它是一笔有明确目标的预算，用来驱动增长——我们可以根据对未来增长的可见性来适当上调或下调。
If you look at -- I guess, it was last year, we flexed the thing all the way up. And we talked about at the beginning of the year that we were going to add more to marketing in our plan at the beginning of the year was to take the certified gain, for example, put that into marketing. We wind up dropping that entire certified gain to the bottom line, share that with our shareholders did more share buybacks.
拿去年来说，我们就把这笔预算“上调到了极致”。年初时我们原本计划把一笔认证收益（certified gain）投入到营销中，但最后我们把这部分收入全部落到了净利润里，与股东分享——通过更多的股票回购来实现。
And we were able to just by the overall business bring that up. And so that wasn't the planned number necessarily at the beginning of the year, but we had line of sight into great cardholders, and that's what we did. So that number is going to vary. It could go a little bit up, it could go a little bit down. You’re not going to see it drop a couple of billion dollars. It did during COVID because you didn't have line of sight in there. But as you get bigger and bigger, you need to invest more to continue to bring those cardholders in but think in that investment in terms of VCE and marketing, not just one or the other.
我们凭借整体业务增长能力弥补了那部分预算空缺。虽然这并不是年初就定下的预算安排，但当我们看到了获取优质客户的机会，我们就灵活应对。所以这笔营销预算是会波动的，可能略高也可能略低，但不会出现几十亿美元的大幅削减——那种情况只出现在疫情那年，因为当时根本看不清前方。而随着我们业务规模不断扩大，我们就需要不断投资来吸引持卡人。但一定要把这类投资看作VCE与市场营销的组合，而不是某一个单项的取舍问题。
Rob Wildhack
And to your point on the ROI with respect to marketing, I'd imagine you have far more marketing opportunities that meet the ROI threshold today than you could fund with a reasonable marketing budget. Is that fair?
顺着你刚才关于ROI的说法，我猜现在你们符合ROI门槛的营销机会，可能远多于一个“合理”预算能覆盖的范围。这么说对吗？
Steve Squeri
Yes. I mean I think that is absolutely fair. I mean we have -- look, we have a responsibility to our shareholders to deliver earnings and delivering earnings growth. And so we set our ROIs at a level that we're comfortable to do that. But the way I've described this is we have teams of people that look at initiatives and they come -- come to the marketing council with those initiatives. It's sort of like Shark Tank, right?
完全正确。确实如此。我们当然有责任为股东创造收益和收益增长，所以我们会设定一个让我们有信心达成这些目标的ROI门槛。我的比喻是这样的：我们有团队专门评估各种营销项目，然后提交到“市场营销委员会”，这个过程就像《创智赢家》（Shark Tank）一样。
I mean they come in, here's my initiative. And will you fund it? Maybe yes, maybe no. And it all depends on how the years are. If the ROIs are really, really high for the other ideas, we're going to fund those. And so you may look at it and say, "Hey, there's some good ROIs on that we're leaving on the table.” On the other hand, we may make the decision that, that's just completely [idiotic] to leave that, we'll just communicate that to our shareholders. And you may miss -- again, you may miss from a short-term perspective, what the EPS is.
项目团队走进来，展示他们的创意：“这是我的提案，你们愿意投钱吗？”——我们可能说“愿意”，也可能说“不”。这完全取决于这一年的整体情况。如果其他项目的ROI更高，那我们就优先支持它们。所以你可能会看到一些ROI也不错的项目被暂时搁置。有时候，我们也会觉得“这项目放弃太可惜了”，那我们就会跟股东沟通清楚。短期来看可能会影响EPS表现，但我们不会为短期目标去牺牲战略判断。
推荐引擎的效率更高，某个视频先推给一小群用户，看效果再大面积的泛化，AMEX的这些做法就像传统手工的商业模式。
But we're not running this company from a short-term perspective. And I think if you look over the last 7 years, the returns that we've been able to deliver, the capital we've been able to return to our shareholders the way that we have decided to run it is the right way.
但我们运营公司的方式不是以短期视角为导向的。你如果回顾过去7年，我们取得的回报、回馈给股东的资本，我们所坚持的运营方式——这一路走来，证明我们走的是对的路。
Just going back to COVID, I mean, look, we could have lost -- as we were going through COVID, it looked like we're going to lose money. And my decision was to invest more because my view was if we lose $5 or we lose $6, it gives a shit. It doesn't really matter. We're losing money right? And the reality was, as long as your capital position, liquidity position is right, why not invest in your cardholders.
回到疫情那年，当时我们很可能会亏钱。我当时的决定是反而要“加大投资”，因为我的观点是：你亏5美元还是亏6美元，有什么区别呢？反正就是在亏损，对吧？而只要你的资本充足、流动性没问题，那为什么不在这种时候投资持卡人呢？
获得优质客户的成本是不是变的足够便宜？
We did that. We didn't lose any money. Wound up making money, didn't make as much as we had plan to make, but it kept the fuel in the tank. So when we came out of COVID, we came out like a rocket ship as opposed to limping out. And I think that was the right decision for us.
我们确实这样做了，结果是我们并没有亏钱。我们还是实现了盈利，虽然没达到原定目标，但我们保住了“增长引擎”的燃料。所以等疫情过去，我们是“像火箭一样冲出来”的，而不是一瘸一拐地缓慢复苏。我认为这对我们来说，是非常正确的决策。
Rob Wildhack
The turbo on the Mercedes on the Auto bond --
奔驰开上德国高速，开“涡轮”了——
Steve Squeri
Exactly you're getting, right --
对，你完全明白了（笑）——
Rob Wildhack
The whole concept.
整个理念串起来了。
Steve Squeri
If there's any takeaway --
如果今天有一个最值得带走的要点——
Rob Wildhack
At 3:00, you got it locked in. All right. And then on the other operating expense lines, I mean, you've been able to generate healthy leverage there. But I guess the question would be, how do you ensure that you're both driving operating leverage and making the sort of back end technology investment? And then as a corollary to that, like what are some of those maybe behind-the-scenes technology investments that you're kind of excited about?
3点整，核心信息打包带走（笑）。好，那我们来看其他运营费用部分。你们这几年在这块取得了很不错的杠杆效应。但我的问题是，你们是如何一边提升运营杠杆，一边又持续加码后端科技投入的？进一步说，有没有哪些“幕后”的科技项目，是你个人特别感到兴奋的？
Steve Squeri
Well, I think the key thing is, over the last 6, 7 years, we've gone from like a $35 billion revenue company to almost a $70 billion revenue company. And when you do that your variable revenues that have come in don't require the same around of OpEx or technology and what have you. And so scale has its benefits.
我认为关键在于，我们在过去六七年里，从一家年营收大约350亿美元的公司，成长为接近700亿美元的公司。随着规模扩大，很多新增收入是“可变收入”，并不需要同比例地增加运营费用或技术投入。因此，规模带来了天然的效率红利。
Having said that, probably we've invested 40% more in a technology than we did just in 2021, right? So we've continued to invest. The reality is, is that what is exciting -- again, these are important investments for us. But one of the things that we've decided to do is really we re-platforming all of our back-end systems.
当然话说回来，相比2021年，我们在技术上的投资已经增长了约40%。所以我们还是持续在加大投入。真正令人兴奋的是——这些确实是对我们至关重要的投资——我们已经决定对整个后端系统进行全面“重构”。
Now -- that may not excite a lot of you in the room, but it really drives our technology people while they love this, right? So you're re-platforming systems that are 30 and 40 -- and sometimes 30 and 40 years old, or have gone through multiple iterations and now you've decided to re-platform them.
这个话题可能听起来不那么“性感”，但我们的技术团队对此非常激动（笑）。我们在重构的，是那些运行了30年甚至40年的核心系统，它们经历了无数次升级、集成、补丁，现在我们终于决定彻底“重构”。
So we've made the decision to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to do that. Why do you do that? It makes it a lot more nimble. It makes it more API ready. It makes it able to integrate it and invest in with other fintechs and other providers and to really have -- to take advantage of our global scale.
我们为这个重构项目投入了数亿美元。为什么要这么做？因为这样能让系统变得更灵活，更易于API集成，更容易与其他金融科技公司及合作伙伴无缝连接，并真正释放我们的全球规模优势。
And look, a lot of people talk about AI, and we've invested in AI, but the key point is, we have invested in AI since 2010. And when you look at our underwriting decisions, every time you swipe that card, it's a machine learning decision that’s out there. And so every credit fraud underwriting decision, authorization that we do is all AI.
再谈谈AI吧，大家现在都在谈AI。其实我们从2010年就开始投资AI了。你每刷一次卡，背后都是一个机器学习模型在做判断。我们的授信决策、欺诈识别、交易授权，这些都是靠AI驱动的。
And it continues to learn, and that's how we set reset, no preset spending limits and so forth. And so -- we're excited about what we can do from a customer-facing perspective going forward. And we're excited about integrating in all of those acquisitions that we've made from a small business perspective into a platform that faces our SMEs.
而这些模型会持续学习。我们现在的“无预设额度”系统，就是这么实现的。未来我们在客户服务端还能做很多令人兴奋的事情。同时，我们也在把过去几年收购的小企业相关服务整合到一个统一的中小企业平台上。
And then we got Tock and we've got -- we've got Tock and we've got resi, which we need to put together, and we got Rome, which is another acquisition that we did, which allows Tock and resi to connect to systems like Toast and Ship4 to be able to bring information back so you get much more of a customer management put a restaurant to them.
还有像 Tock、Resy，我们计划把它们打通整合；还有我们收购的 Rome，它可以让 Tock 和 Resy 连接上像 Toast 和 Ship4 这类餐饮系统，把顾客数据反馈回来。这样我们就能为餐厅提供一整套“客户管理解决方案”，从支付到预约到客户洞察。
目前胜出的大部分是技术出身的创始人，这个事不好办。
Rob Wildhack
Awesome. Okay. A few minutes left, I'll go to a couple of audience questions. You alluded to Capital One–Discover a little bit, but the question specifically here is, do you think this combo helps overall industry economics and/or will the potential extra margin be returned to card members for rewards retention, those kinds of things?
太棒了。我们还剩几分钟，来看看观众提问吧。你刚才提到了一点 Capital One 收购 Discover 的事，但观众的问题更具体：你认为这个合并是否会改善整个行业的经济结构？还是说，可能的额外利润会转化为对持卡人的回馈，比如更多奖励、更高留存率等等？
Steve Squeri
That would be a good question for Rich. Look, I think that -- I think it's a really good acquisition for Capital One. I think it gives them a debit network, which I think is really important. I think that's the crown jewel here. I think it gives them more scale. I mean they will become the premium, low FICO lender, if you could put those words together, and they'll have tremendous, tremendous scale. And they'll do it better than anybody else because they do it better than anybody else.
这个问题也许该问 Rich（笑）。但我的看法是，这确实是 Capital One 做的一笔非常好的收购。我认为对他们来说，获得一个借记卡网络（Discover 的网络）非常重要，这才是真正的“皇冠上的明珠”。同时也让他们获得了更大的规模效应。他们将成为“高端低FICO信贷商”——如果你能把“高端”和“低FICO”这两个词放在一起的话（笑）——他们的规模会非常大，而且他们在这个领域的执行能力比任何人都强。
In terms of the Discover Network itself, we'll see. I would not consider the current Discover network the Autobahn. So no disrespect, but it's not known for premium customers. And I think the tough part of that decision is do you take high interchange transactions off the Visa and Mastercard network and put them on the Discover network at a much lower discount rate.
至于 Discover 自身的网络，我们拭目以待。但我不会把它比作“高速公路”（Autobahn）。不是不尊重他们，但 Discover 网络并不是以高端客户著称的。而这其中最难抉择的地方是：你是否真的愿意把原本在 Visa 或 Mastercard 网络上、能收取高交换费（interchange）的交易，转移到折扣率更低的 Discover 网络上？
And that's a tough -- that's a real tough because you'd have to believe that you're going to get more value out of that and I just think you're going to see -- my view is you will see them keep a lot of the volume on Visa Mastercard and keep some of the volume on Discover, but I think the debit network will be a big win for them and a consolidation of all that stuff.
这是个很难的决定——你得相信转到 Discover 网络上会带来更大的整体价值。而我的看法是，他们可能会继续把大量交易留在 Visa 和 Mastercard 网络上，只有一部分交易会迁移到 Discover 网络。但这笔收购中的借记网络部分对他们来说将是重大收获，并将有助于整合整体架构。
竞争对手的评价有时候更清晰，一直不敢买入Capital One。
Rob Wildhack
Yes. Okay. Another audience question here. You talked about deposit growth -- but online banks broadly have not taken off in the U.S. the way we might have expected several years ago. I mean why do you think that is? What's the gating factor there? And then what do you think is unique and behind Amex's success there?
好，再来一个观众提问。你之前提到过存款增长——但总体来看，美国的线上银行并没有像几年前我们预期的那样蓬勃发展。你认为原因是什么？有什么关键阻碍因素？同时，美国运通在这方面取得一定成绩，你觉得你们成功的独特之处在哪里？
Steve Squeri
Well, I mean, we're not going to scare anybody with our online deposits at this point. I don't think Jamie or Jane or any what Brian is really worried about Amex at this point. But for us, it's enough to help us fund our business I mean, we're not -- we're really not a transaction, we're not a transacting bank. And I think online banks haven't taken off because your regular bank can do everything you need to do online for you, right? I mean, so you have a brick-and-mortar bank. I don't know on the last time anybody was in a brick-and-mortar bank here.
首先，我们现在的线上存款规模还远远谈不上“吓到”谁。我不认为 Jamie（摩根大通CEO）、Jane（花旗CEO）或 Brian（美国银行CEO）会因为 Amex 担心什么。但对我们来说，目前的存款规模足以支撑我们的业务。我们本质上不是一家“交易型银行”。而我认为线上银行之所以没有真正起飞，是因为传统银行本身已经把线上服务做得足够好了。你有一家实体银行——但我不确定在场的各位最近一次去线下银行网点是多久以前的事了。
很好的解释。
Rob Wildhack
I went this weekend.
我这个周末才刚去了一次。
Steve Squeri
[indiscernible] how was it?
（笑）怎么样？体验如何？
Rob Wildhack
Not great.
不太好。
Steve Squeri
Not great. Okay. But you could do pretty much the exact same things you do in that brick-and-mortar bank other than maybe do a big wire with your app that you have either from JPMorgan or Citi or so forth. And so I think it's really hard. I think the banks have done a really good job of digitizing their existing value proposition. And I think -- so that's why I don't think pure online banks have taken over.
不太好，哈哈，明白。但你其实在 JPMorgan、花旗等的手机App上，几乎可以完成你在实体网点能做的所有事情——除了可能发一笔大额电汇。因此我认为，纯线上银行的发展之所以受限，是因为传统银行已经非常成功地把自己原有的价值主张“数字化”了，所以线上银行很难在用户体验上拉开明显差距。
For us, it's really about we're leaning in on our brand, our trust and our security. And people for years have liked putting their money with American Express, it happened with travelers checks, right? If you think about a traveler's check, people gave us their money, we gave him a piece of paper, and we say, we'll make you good on that, right?
对我们来说，我们依靠的是品牌、信任与安全。多年来，很多人都愿意把钱交给 American Express——早在旅行支票时代就是这样。你想想旅行支票的本质：客户把钱交给我们，我们给他们一张纸，而他们信任我们会兑现这张纸。
And so -- and that's what we leaned into, and we did that right after the financial crisis, and it's really high yield savings, right? And then what we decided to do is for small business and for consumer, if you want to have a transaction bank with us, you got it. We'll have that offering for you, but it's not something that we're necessarily leaning into for the future growth of the company.
我们就是基于这种信任而构建了我们的存款业务，从金融危机之后就开始了，主要是以高收益储蓄账户为主。至于日常交易银行服务（transaction banking），我们为小企业和个人客户都提供了相应产品。如果他们需要，我们可以满足，但我们并不打算把这块业务作为公司未来增长的核心战略方向。
Rob Wildhack
Okay. We can wrap it up. I have one last question, Steve, as a long-time veteran of the company — what are the main takeaways and the investment case that you want this audience to leave here with today?
好，我们可以结束了。我最后还有一个问题，Steve，作为公司长期的老将——你希望今天在座的投资者带走哪些核心观点和投资理由？
Steve Squeri
Hope, we clear up the NII stuff. That's what I'm hoping — I hope we cleared that up. No, I think, look, we're in a great — I think anybody in the card business is in a great industry, right? I mean you want to be in an industry where the TAM is growing. So I think that's terrific. For us, not only are we in a great industry where a TAM is growing, but we're in those segments that have growth opportunities. Premium, the premium segment is growing a lot faster than the rest of the industry, and we are punching above our weight.
我希望我们今天把净利息收入（NII）的问题讲清楚了，这是我希望大家明白的一点。说真的，我认为我们所在的行业——信用卡行业——本身就是一个非常优秀的行业。你总是希望自己身处一个“可服务市场总量”（TAM）持续增长的行业，而我们正是如此。更重要的是，我们不仅身处一个整体增长的行业，我们还处在其中增长最快的几个细分市场，比如高端客户群，而我们在这个领域的表现远超我们的市场份额。
We talked about international. And the huge opportunity that we have for growth in international. Look, I talked about the closed loop. Our business model, which is partly — which is the closed loop with a premium consumer and a premium small business customer is really important and it helps — it helps drive our revenue, look at our — let's look at our revenue mix, 75%, 25%. You do not see that from a card from a company.
我们还提到了国际市场，那是我们未来巨大的增长机会。再来看我们的闭环模式（closed loop）——我们独特的业务模型连接了高端消费者和高端小企业客户，这一点至关重要，也直接推动了我们的收入增长。看看我们的收入结构：75%是非利息收入，25%是利息收入。你几乎看不到哪家发卡公司能做到这一点。
最后在这一点上收回来，很好。
And we have the best credit quality in the industry. We started out by talking about 175 years of innovation. We continue to innovate, and we will continue to innovate. And our key is continuing to stay above — to stay ahead of our competition and to respond to those forces in the marketplace. And if you like a 30% ROE and you like us to return 80% of our capital to shareholders, you may want to think about us.
我们的客户信用质量是业内最好的。我们从175年的创新历史讲起，而我们会继续保持创新。我们的关键在于保持领先，领先于竞争对手，并持续回应市场变化。如果你喜欢30%的股本回报率（ROE），也欣赏我们每年向股东返还80%资本的做法，那也许你该认真考虑投资我们。
Rob Wildhack
Awesome. This has been great, Steve. Thank you so much.
太棒了，这场对话非常精彩。谢谢你，Steve。
Steve Squeri
My pleasure. Thank you very much. Thanks for coming.
很高兴能来，非常感谢大家。谢谢你们的到来。
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