American Express shares fell after the Wall Street Journal reported that the investigating arms of three US financial agencies were investigating the card issuer’s sales practices.
The company’s shares fell 1.3% on Thursday after falling 5% earlier.
The offices of the Inspectors-General of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. are investigating whether AmEx in New York has printed its cards with misleading tactics on small business clients and whether customers are being harmed, according to the Journal.
Referring to current or former employees of the issuer, the Journal reported in March that some AmEx employees, in an effort to promote sales, misrepresented the card rewards and fees or issued cards that customers did not seek. .
AmEx said in a statement on Thursday that it has a robust compliance policy and control and [does] cannot tolerate misconduct. ” The firm added that it has collaborated with the regulators of small business card regulators that took place in 2015 and 2016.
“We conducted a detailed, independent review of these sales from this period, and found no evidence of a pattern of misleading sales practices,” AmEx said. The commercial procurement group responsible for these sales represents approximately 0.25 percent of the 65 million total new cards purchased by American Express worldwide between 2014 and 2019. We take these matters seriously, and will continue to work with our regulators to work.”