Today's Heard on the Street column by Peter Eavis in the Wall St. Journal takes a look at American Express. Eavis writes: "The dilemma for AmEx is deciding how big its pure credit-card book, as opposed to classic charge cards, should be."

American Express has announced a new service that "provides American Express Charge Cardmembers with the ability to set spending limits for Additional Cards on their account. It’s the only consumer card on the market to offer this type of spending control. Now, instead of providing cash to their teenagers, other family members, the nanny, or other household helpers, Cardmembers can set, manage and track spending limits on Additional Cards, helping them to maintain a tighter household budget and track all family expenditures billed to their Card." READ MORE

In an article titled "Frequent Fliers, Choose Your Card", Justin Bachman writes for BusinessWeek about the battle between US Bank and American Express over the former US Bank/Northwest Airlines WorldPerks cardholders - now that Northwest is about to merge with Delta, longtime partner with American Express. Bachman writes: "The fight over this customer base has been ferocious."

In an article titled "Amex chief sticks to playing cards he knows", Matthew Garrahan writes for the Financial Times about American Express and CEO Ken Chenault.

Mr Chenault says: “In a crisis what you don’t do is hunker in the bunker. I’m very focused on the core advantages of our business model, what changes need to be made . . . and how to emerge stronger.”

American Express has announced a number of new benefits available through its Delta SkyMiles Credit Cards as well as the launch of what it is calling "a 360-degree marketing campaign to build awareness for the Cards in key Delta hubs that were formerly Northwest hubs within the U.S. including Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Memphis." READ MORE

Maria Aspan reports for the American Banker in Monday's edition that "U.S. Bancorp and American Express Co. are squaring off for a marketing battle that will be waged with reward programs but could be won on reputation." At stake are the cardholders of the Northwest WorldPerks Visa card (issued by US Bank) - with US Bank also competing for those cardholders with a new FlexPerks Visa card! See the next story for late news tonight about litigation brought by Northwest against US Bank.

Suzanne Ziegler reports for the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune about a lawsuit filed today by Northwest Airlines (now merged into Delta) against US Bank trying to stop the bank's efforts to migrate cardholders from the soon to be defunct Northwest Worldperks Visa card (issued by US Bank) to U.S. Bank's new FlexPerks Visa card. Delta is, of course, planning to move those cardholders to its American Express SkyMiles card.

American Express has reported financial results for the first quarter of 2009 - including a decline in total revenues of 18% with income of $443 million. Amex reported US card spending of more than $63 billion and said it has $207 billion in open credit lines to consumers and small businesses. Merchant discount revenue also declined 18% with the average discount rate down slightly to 2.56%. Average cardholder spending declines 18% worldwide to $2,443.

American Express this afternoon reported February statistics for its US credit card portfolio which showed that the net chargeoff rate grew from 8.1% to 8.6% (managed basic) while the total amount outstanding continued to decline.

First Data and American Express have announced a new merchant services agreement in Poland where First Data will become the exclusive merchant acquirer and merchant processor for American Express Card transactions in Poland. READ MORE

Elavon, the merchant acquiring subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp, has announced that it is the "first acquirer to commercially market the American Express OnePoint program to its third party sales channels, including Merchant Service Providers (MSP's) and Agent Banks." Under this program, Elavon says it performs all set up, processing, settlement, funding, customer support and reporting for eligible American Express acceptance, thereby providing merchants with one processing relationship for all major card brands. Elavon also offers OnePoint to merchants in its direct sales and alliance bank referral channels. READ MORE

In a story titled "Bruised AmEx Returns to Roots", Robin Sidel writes for the Wall St. Journal that "AmEx is reeling from late payments and defaults by customers it aggressively wooed before the U.S. economy tumbled into recession."

Mary Pilon writes for the Wall St. Journal about the news that came out over the weekend that American Express has begun offering certain of its credit card customers a $300 American Express Gift Card in exchange for them paying off their outstanding balance by the end of April. A company spokeswoman said that the offer was made to a "small number of cardmembers who have sizeable balances and little spending and payment activity."

Earlier this week, American Express held a financial community meeting. The presentation materials including remarks by CEO Ken Chenault are available on the American Express website.

EMVCo, the EMV standards body jointly owned by JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc., has announced American Express as its fourth owner-member. According to the organization, "the addition of this latest international payment organisation aligns with EMVCo’s intent to attract further industry participation in the development of the EMV Specifications." READ MORE

Late last week the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit struck down a mandatory arbitration clause in contracts by American Express that banned any type of class litigation. Here's the text of the court's decision .

The original litigation was brought in 2003 by a group of merchants seeking to have American Express offer different pricing for acceptance of its revolving credit card products vs. its traditional personal and corporate charge card products.

The plaintiffs assert that, by means of the “Honor All Cards” provision, merchants are faced with the choice of paying supracompetitive merchant discount fees (i.e., fees above competitive levels) on Amex’s new mass-market products or “inevitably los[ing] a significant portion of the sales they receive from businesses, travelers, affluent consumers, and others” who are the traditional users of Amex charge cards. This, the plaintiffs claim, amounts to an illegal “tying arrangement,” in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1."

After the market close today, American Express announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2008.

Overall Amex cardholder spending declined 10% year over year - or 5% when adjusted for foreign exchange rates. In the US, card billed business (including cash advances) declined 8% year over year, falling from $123 billion to $112.7 billion in the fourth quarter 2008. In terms of average cardholder spending, Amex reported it declined 15% to $2,792 for the quarter. The average merchant discount rate remained essentially unchanged at 2.53%.

American Express Global Commercial Card has released a new study "detailing how companies are instituting best practices and driving savings to control their costs in an economic downturn. Working with Accenture, American Express interviewed a number of Fortune 500 companies in industries ranging from consumer products to business services. These companies had median gross revenues of $30 billion, and were identified as having leading T&E spending policies." (Full study here ). READ MORE

American Express has announced that "the United States Department of Treasury has provided preliminary approval for the company to participate in the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program Capital Purchase Program. American Express expects to issue and sell to the Treasury preferred stock of approximately $3.39 billion and warrants to purchase shares of common stock for up to 15% of that amount." In November, American Express was approved as a bank holding company by the Federal Reserve.

In an article titled "Three Firms that Court Rich May Put Pressure on Amex" (subs. reqd.), Maria Aspan writes for the American Banker about how the changes on Wall Street with respect to investment banks becoming commercial banks could increase competition for affluent consumers and their cards.

Delta Air Lines and American Express have announced a multiyear extension of their exclusive Co-brand Credit Card partnerships. As part of the partnership agreement, Delta will receive an immediate $1 billion boost to its liquidity from a purchase of SkyMiles. Delta said it expects to receive an additional $1 billion from contract improvements through 2010.

In a post to the New York Times' BITS blog titled "A Credit Card Loses Its High-Tech Cred", Jennifer Kingson writes about the American Express Blue card - introduced with a lot of "sizzle" almost ten years ago in 1999. The original contact-based smart chip originally embedded in the original Blue cards is gone - now replaced with an embedded contactless chip instead.

American Express has been granted bank holding company status by the Federal Reserve. In a press release issued following the Fed's announcement this afternoon, Amex said that "qualifying as a bank holding company will provide American Express maximum flexibility and stability in this challenging economic environment. It aligns American Express’ regulatory status with other companies in the financial services industry, further diversifies the Company’s funding sources and access to capital, and provides opportunities to expand its deposit-taking capabilities." READ MORE

The Federal Reserve has announced that it has approved "the applications and notices under sections 3 and 4 of the Bank Holding Company Act by American Express Company and American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc., both of New York, New York, to become bank holding companies on conversion of American Express Centurion Bank, Salt Lake City, Utah, to a bank, and to retain certain nonbanking subsidiaries, including American Express Bank, FSB, Salt Lake City, Utah."

Macerich has announced that it, in partnership with American Express, is introducing the "Give Green" Gift Card. Calling the card "something brand new in the shopping center industry, every purchase of a Give Green Gift Card benefits American Forests, the nation's oldest nonprofit citizen conservation organization, which is dedicated to growing a healthier world through healthier forest ecosystems." READ MORE

Seeking Alpha has published a transcript of yesterday's American Express earnings call. An accompanying slide presentation and additional financial details ares also available.

American Express has reported financial results for the third quarter of 2008 with net income declining 23 percent and credit losses on its US managed card services business up to 5.9% vs 5.3% during the second quarter and 3.0% in the same quarter a year earlier. In the US, Amex's billed business increased 4% while its average basic cardmember spending declined 1% to $2,950.

Robin Sidel writes for the Wall St. Journal about increasing credit card delinquencies and chargeoffs at American Express. Amex is scheduled to announce third quarter financial results later today. The American Banker also reported on Amex's delinquencies in a report last Friday.

American Express held a financial community meeting yesterday. A webcast is available online along with the slide presentations and speech text by Amex executives Ken Chenault, Al Kelly and Ed Gilligan. Al Kelly's presentation, in particular, is worth viewing/reading for his insights and the data he shares about the current state of the US economy and the impacts on US consumers.

American Express has introduced Text MYAMEX - a new mobile service that allows American Express cardholders to learn their account balance on the run. See the FAQ.