American Express Company
Company History
American Express History: Founding, Growth & Key Milestones
Founded 1850 in Buffalo, United States
When was American Express founded?
American Express was founded in 1850 in Buffalo, United States by Henry Wells, William Fargo and John Warren Butterfield, making it 176 years old.
- Founded
- 1850
- Founding place
- Buffalo, United States
- Founders
- Henry Wells, William Fargo and John Warren Butterfield
- Headquarters today
- New York, New York
- Milestones documented
- 16 (1850–2025)
- Current CEO
- Stephen Squeri
- Acquisitions
- 8
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1850 | American Express founded in Buffalo, New York |
| 1882 | Money order launched |
| 1891 | Traveler's cheque invented |
| 1917 | Federal control of the express industry |
| 1958 | First American Express charge card |
| 1966 | Gold Card introduced |
| 1984 | Platinum Card launched during the financial supermarket build-out |
| 1993 | Harvey Golub refocuses the company |
| 1999 | Centurion Card launched |
| 2001 | Kenneth Chenault becomes chief executive |
| 2008 | Conversion to a bank holding company |
| 2016 | Costco co-brand ends |
| 2018 | Stephen Squeri becomes chairman and chief executive |
| 2020 | Pandemic hits travel and entertainment spending |
| 2024 | Tock acquisition widens the dining platform |
| 2025 | Platinum refresh and record FY2025 results |
- Where was American Express founded?
- American Express was founded in Buffalo, United States in 1850. wikidata.org
- Who founded American Express?
- American Express was founded by Henry Wells, William Fargo and John Warren Butterfield.
- When did American Express start?
- American Express was founded in 1850.
- How old is American Express?
- American Express is 176 years old as of 2026.
- How did American Express start?
- American Express started as an express freight business in 1850 in Buffalo, New York, founded by three rivals including the two men who later started Wells Fargo.
Founding Story
In 1850, three rival express operators, Henry Wells, William Fargo and John Butterfield, merged their businesses in Buffalo, New York, to form the American Express Company, with Wells as its first president and Fargo as secretary. They carried cash, gold and documents by stagecoach and rail with armed guards, work the Post Office would not do. Money orders followed in 1882. When president J.C. Fargo struggled to cash letters of credit on a European trip in 1890, he pushed the company to build something better, and in 1891 an employee named Marcellus Berry produced the American Express Traveler's Cheque, which turned a freight hauler into a global financial business.
Founders
Henry Wells
The founding of American Express is a fascinating story of intense 19th-century corporate rivalry culminating in a monopolistic merger. The company was founded in 1850 in Buffalo, New York, not as a financial services giant, but as an express freight forwarding company. During the rapid westward expansion of the United States, the US Postal Service was unreliable and outright refused to transport large parcels, gold, or currency. Private 'express' companies emerged to fill this void, employing armed guards and stagecoaches to securely transport valuables across dangerous, untamed territories. In 1850, the express industry was dominated by three competitive regional companies: Wells & Company (owned by Henry Wells), Livingston, Fargo & Company (owned by William Fargo), and Butterfield, Wasson & Company (owned by John Butterfield). Recognizing that their intense price wars were destroying their profitability, the three men executed an effective strategic maneuver: they merged their operations into a single joint-stock corporation named the American Express Company. Henry Wells served as the first president, and William Fargo as secretary. American Express quickly established a virtual monopoly on the transport of goods, currency, and financial documents across New York State and the rapidly expanding American Midwest. During the Civil War they were tasked with securely transporting supplies to the Union Army and bringing election ballots to soldiers on the front lines. The company's pivot toward financial services occurred much later, in 1882, when they launched the American Express Money Order to compete with the US Post Office, followed by the invention of the Traveler's Cheque in 1891. It wasn't until 1958, over a century after its founding, that American Express finally launched its first charge card, altering the trajectory of global consumer finance. Henry Wells was born in 1805.
William Fargo
William Fargo co-founded American Express in 1850 alongside Henry Wells and John Butterfield, bringing operational discipline and route management expertise to the merger of competing express businesses. Born in 1818 in upstate New York, Fargo began working in the express industry in his early twenties and built a reputation for reliability and trustworthiness that translated directly into the brand values American Express would cultivate across subsequent decades. When the partners disagreed about expanding into the California market following the gold rush, Fargo joined Wells in founding the separate Wells, Fargo & Company in 1852, a company that would develop its own well-known American history in the West. Fargo served as the second president of American Express from 1868 to 1881, overseeing the company during a period of expansion and professionalization. He simultaneously served as mayor of Buffalo from 1862 to 1866, reflecting the civic stature that successful business leaders of the era often achieved in their home communities. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
John Warren Butterfield
John Warren Butterfield was one of the three founders of American Express in 1850 and served as a director, bringing the organizational resources, political connections and financial backing that made the merger viable. Henry Wells, not Butterfield, was the company's first president, holding the office from 1850 to 1868. Butterfield's own business empire extended well beyond American Express: he ran stagecoach lines and telegraph companies, and in 1857 he won the United States government overland mail contract, operating the Butterfield Overland Mail across the American Southwest. His legacy inside the company is mixed. His insistence on blocking expansion into California frustrated his co-founders and led directly to Wells and Fargo creating Wells Fargo & Company as a separate enterprise in 1852, a split that might have been avoided had the three founders shared a single geographic vision. His role in establishing the company's route network, corporate infrastructure and financial backing was nonetheless essential to its early success. John Warren Butterfield was born in 1801.
Key Milestones
American Express founded in Buffalo, New York
Henry Wells, William Fargo and John Butterfield merged three competing express businesses on March 18, 1850 to form the American Express Company, an unincorporated joint-stock association capitalized at 150,000 dollars. Wells was its first president and Fargo its secretary. The company carried freight, currency, gold and financial documents across New York State and the Midwest, work the United States Post Office would not handle.
Source: britannica.comMoney order launched
American Express introduced its own money order, competing directly with the postal money order the United States Post Office had offered since 1864. It gave people without bank accounts a way to send funds, sold well, and moved the company from freight hauling into financial services.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgTraveler's cheque invented
Marcellus Berry created the American Express Traveler's Cheque after president J.C. Fargo struggled to cash letters of credit on a European trip in 1890. The cheque was signed once at purchase and countersigned in front of the accepting merchant, which made it hard to use if stolen. It defined the company's economics for most of the next century and paid for the overseas office network that later supported the card business.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgFederal control of the express industry
Federal control of the railroads began in December 1917, and in 1918 the domestic express operations of American Express and its rivals were consolidated into the American Railway Express Company. American Express lost the freight business it had spent six decades building and rebuilt around international activities: traveler's cheques, foreign exchange, overseas offices and travel services.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgFirst American Express charge card
American Express issued its first charge card on October 1, 1958, printed on paper with a 6 dollar annual fee, after signing up more than 250,000 card members before launch. Balances had to be settled in full each month, which separated it from the revolving bank cards that appeared the same year. Fraud and credit losses were heavy in the first year and the company came close to abandoning the product.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgGold Card introduced
American Express launched the Gold Card in 1966 for higher-spending executives and frequent travelers, the first tier above the standard card and the start of the graded premium lineup that later added the Platinum Card and the Centurion Card. The familiar green plastic card with the centurion head followed in 1969.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgPlatinum Card launched during the financial supermarket build-out
American Express introduced The Platinum Card by invitation in 1984 with a 250 dollar annual fee, creating the ultra-premium card category. The same year, under chief executive James Robinson III, it bought the investment bank Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb and the financial planner IDS Financial Services as part of a financial supermarket strategy that proved hard to integrate with the card and travel culture.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHarvey Golub refocuses the company
Harvey Golub became chief executive in 1993 and unwound the conglomerate: the Shearson brokerage went to Primerica's Smith Barney and The Boston Company to Mellon Bank in 1993, and Lehman Brothers was spun off in 1994. He reinvested in payments and travel, paying 375 million dollars in September 1994 for the corporate travel operations of Thomas Cook and 385 United States travel offices, and rebuilt merchant coverage.
Source: latimes.comCenturion Card launched
American Express created the Centurion Card in 1999, an invitation-only metal card that became the top tier of its lineup. The company has never published its fee schedule, and the product functions mainly as a positioning device for the cards below it.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgKenneth Chenault becomes chief executive
Kenneth Chenault became chief executive in January 2001, weeks before the September 11 attacks damaged the company's lower Manhattan operations and cut travel spending sharply. He ran American Express for 17 years, through the 2008 financial crisis and the shift from pure charge cards to a mix of charge and revolving credit, and was one of the first African American chief executives of a Dow Jones Industrial Average company.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgConversion to a bank holding company
On November 10, 2008 the Federal Reserve Board approved applications by American Express Company and American Express Travel Related Services to become bank holding companies, on conversion of American Express Centurion Bank from an industrial loan company into a bank. With commercial paper markets frozen, the change gave the company deposit funding and access to Federal Reserve facilities, and put it under Federal Reserve supervision.
Source: federalreserve.govCostco co-brand ends
Costco moved its United States co-branded card to Citigroup and Visa on June 20, 2016, ending a 16-year exclusive relationship after the two sides failed to agree terms, and stopped accepting American Express cards in its warehouses. American Express sold the Costco card portfolio to Citigroup and replaced the lost volume by enriching the Platinum and Gold Cards and expanding small business acceptance.
Source: npr.orgStephen Squeri becomes chairman and chief executive
Stephen Squeri succeeded Kenneth Chenault in February 2018 after more than three decades inside the company, including spells as chief information officer and group president of Global Corporate Services. He raised annual fees alongside richer benefits, pushed acquisition toward Millennial and Gen Z customers and expanded the commercial business; net card fees grew from 7,255 million dollars in 2023 to 9,993 million dollars in 2025.
Source: sec.govPandemic hits travel and entertainment spending
COVID-19 restrictions cut the travel and entertainment spending American Express depends on, and total revenues net of interest expense fell from 43.6 billion dollars in 2019 to 36.1 billion dollars in 2020, with net income down to 3.1 billion dollars. The company added credits for streaming, food delivery and dining and shifted card benefits toward everyday categories, a change it kept after travel recovered.
Source: data.sec.govTock acquisition widens the dining platform
American Express agreed in June 2024 to buy Tock, a reservation, table and event management platform, from Squarespace for 400 million dollars in cash, pairing it with Resy, which it had bought in 2019. Dining is the largest travel and entertainment spending category on Amex cards, and the two platforms give the company inventory it can offer card members directly.
Source: prnewswire.comPlatinum refresh and record FY2025 results
American Express unveiled refreshed United States Consumer and Business Platinum Cards on September 18, 2025, raising the annual fee from 695 dollars to 895 dollars and adding statement credits it values at over 3,500 dollars a year. For the full year it reported 72.2 billion dollars in total revenues net of interest expense, 10.8 billion dollars of net income, 15.38 dollars of diluted earnings per share, 1,669.8 billion dollars of billed business and 152.8 million cards in force.
Source: sec.govMajor Acquisitions
IDS Financial Services
1984American Express bought IDS Financial Services, a Minneapolis financial planning and insurance company, in 1984 as part of chief executive James Robinson III's plan to offer investment advice, insurance and payments under a single brand. The target market was middle-class American families buying comprehensive financial plans, and Amex believed its brand and distribution could grow IDS faster than IDS could grow alone.
Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb
1984American Express bought the investment bank Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb in 1984 to add capital markets and investment banking to its payments and financial planning businesses. James Robinson III expected the combination of Amex's wealthy client base with Lehman's Wall Street relationships to produce cross-selling and fee income.
Thomas Cook corporate travel and United States travel offices
1994American Express agreed in September 1994 to pay $375 million for the international business travel operations of the Thomas Cook Group and for 385 United States travel offices held by its American licensee. The aim was to consolidate corporate travel management, then a fragmented market, and to remove a direct competitor in both business travel and traveler's cheques.
Loyalty Partner
2011American Express announced in December 2010 that it would buy Loyalty Partner, the German company behind the Payback coalition loyalty program in Germany, Poland and India, in a transaction valuing the business at $660 million, made up of $566 million in cash plus $94 million of equity retained by Loyalty Partner management. The purchase closed in the first quarter of 2011. It brought roughly 34 million loyalty customers and a data analytics business serving retailers that did not necessarily accept American Express cards.
Resy
2019American Express announced on May 15, 2019 that it would buy Resy, a restaurant reservation and restaurant-management platform, and completed the deal in August 2019. Terms were not disclosed. Dining is the largest travel and entertainment spending category on Amex cards, and reservations are a benefit the company can deliver directly rather than through a partner.
Kabbage
2020American Express announced on August 17, 2020 that it had agreed to acquire substantially all of Kabbage, a financial technology company providing cash flow management and lending to United States small businesses, including its team, product suite, data platform and intellectual property. Neither company disclosed a price. The purpose was to move American Express beyond cards into a broader small business financial platform.
Tock
2024American Express agreed in June 2024 to buy Tock, a reservation, table and event management platform, from Squarespace for $400 million in cash. Tock serves restaurants, wineries and event venues, and pairing it with Resy widened the range of dining inventory American Express can offer card members in its largest travel and entertainment spending category.
Center
2025American Express agreed on March 6, 2025 to buy Center, a Seattle-area software company that modernizes expense management for small and mid-sized businesses, and completed the purchase on April 16, 2025. Terms were not disclosed. The goal was to combine commercial card payments with automated expense capture and accounting workflows in one platform.
Keep researching American Express
American Express Company History FAQ
What were the major eras in American Express's evolution from 1850 to 1950?
Amex evolved from an express parcel freight carrier (1850) to a financial services pioneer with Money Orders (1882) and Travelers Cheques (1891), before government nationalization of express freight during WWI led Amex to focus entirely on travel and financial services.
When was the first American Express charge card introduced?
American Express officially launched its first charge card on October 1, 1958, printed on purple paper with an annual fee of $6 ($1 more than Diners Club), signing up over 250,000 cardmembers before the official launch date.
When did American Express introduce the Gold Card and the green plastic card?
American Express launched the Gold Card in 1966 for higher-spending executives, then replaced its paper card with the familiar green plastic card carrying the centurion head in 1969.
When was The Platinum Card from American Express introduced?
American Express introduced The Platinum Card in 1984 with an annual fee of $250, pioneering the modern ultra-premium credit card category by offering 24/7 personalized concierge services and emergency medical evacuation.
When was the ultra-exclusive Centurion Card (the 'Black Card') launched?
Amex officially launched the by-invitation-only Centurion Card in 1999 (crafted from anodized titanium), created to satisfy persistent urban legends about a secret black card for ultra-high-net-worth individuals spending hundreds of thousands annually.
How did American Express convert to a Bank Holding Company during the 2008 Financial Crisis?
In November 2008, amid frozen commercial paper credit markets during the Global Financial Crisis, the Federal Reserve approved American Express's emergency application to convert into a bank holding company, granting access to federal discount window liquidity.
How did American Express recover from the loss of the Costco co-brand partnership in 2016?
After Costco ended its 16-year exclusive United States card partnership in June 2016 and moved to Citigroup and Visa, American Express sold the Costco portfolio to Citi and reinvested in Platinum and Gold refreshes and small business acceptance. Revenue passed its pre-2016 level and reached $72.2 billion in 2025.
What were American Express's main milestones in 2025?
American Express refreshed its United States Consumer and Business Platinum Cards in September 2025, raising the fee to $895, and reported record FY2025 results: $72.2 billion of revenue, $10.8 billion of net income, $1,897.0 billion of network volumes, 152.8 million cards in force and 12.5 million new proprietary cards acquired.
Was American Express a mail company?
Yes, it was founded in 1850 in Buffalo, New York as an express mail dispatch business before pivoting into money orders and traveler's checks.
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