American Express vs Visa: Founders, CEOs and History

Company facts

Founders

CEOs and their tenures

Timeline: American Express and Visa side by side

1. 1850American Express

   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.

2. 1882American Express

   Money 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.

3. 1891American Express

   Traveler'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.

4. 1917American Express

   Federal 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.

5. 1958American Express

   First 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.

6. 1958Visa

   BankAmericard launched

   Bank of America launched BankAmericard, the direct predecessor to Visa.

7. 1966American Express

   Gold 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.

8. 1976Visa

   Visa name adopted

   The network adopted the Visa name to support international acceptance and brand consistency.

9. 1984American Express

   Platinum 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.

10. 1993American Express

    Harvey 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.

11. 1999American Express

    Centurion 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.

12. 2001American Express

    Kenneth 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.

13. 2008American Express

    Conversion 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 int…

14. 2008Visa

    Visa IPO

    Visa became a public company, changing the economics from a bank association structure to a shareholder-owned company.

15. 2016American Express

    Costco 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.

16. 2016Visa

    Alfred F. Kelly Jr. becomes CEO

    Alfred F. Kelly Jr. became CEO of Visa in 2016. Chief executive of Visa from December 2016 to January 2023, when Ryan McInerney succeeded him; Kelly then served as executive chairman.

17. 2018American Express

    Stephen 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.

18. 2020American Express

    Pandemic 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.

19. 2020Visa

    Acquired Plaid (abandoned)

    Visa acquired Plaid (abandoned) for $5.3 billion. Visa agreed in January 2020 to buy US data-connectivity fintech Plaid for USD 5.3 billion.

20. 2022Visa

    Tink acquisition

    Visa completed its purchase of Stockholm-based open banking platform Tink in March 2022.

21. 2023Visa

    Ryan McInerney becomes CEO

    Ryan McInerney became Visa's CEO after serving as president.

22. 2024American Express

    Tock 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.

23. 2025American Express

    Platinum 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.

24. 2025Visa

    Revenue reaches $40.0B

    Visa reported $40.0 billion in fiscal 2025 net revenue.

Acquisitions

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