American Express
American Express Company
20 quarters tracked through Q1 2026
Key takeaways
- 01
Lowest charge-off rate in the coverage universe.
American Express printed a 3.67% net charge-off rate in Q1 2026 — far below the 5-8% band where the rest of the launch set sits. The affluent, spend-centric model barely participates in the credit cycle that whipsawed subprime issuers.
- 02
The book keeps growing.
U.S. Consumer Services card-member loans reached $110.5B, up roughly 7% year-over-year, with no loss penalty. Growth and credit quality are not in tension for Amex the way they are for the lenders.
- 03
Stability is the signal.
Amex's NCO rate has held in a tight 3.5-4.0% band for five quarters while peers swung 100+ basis points. Low volatility is itself the differentiator.
Q1 2026 · Editorial brief · By the numbers
3.67%
Net charge-off rate
Lowest in the launch coverage universe.
$110.5B
Card-member loans (USCS)
Up ~7% YoY — growth without a loss penalty.
±0.3 pp
NCO rate range, 5 quarters
Held 3.5-4.0% while peers swung 100+ bps.
$2.0B
USCS card net revenue
Steady growth in the consumer segment.
Q1 2026 · Editorial brief
Prime Has No Cycle
American Express prints the lowest net charge-off rate in Cardintel's coverage — 3.67% in Q1 2026, against a launch-universe band that runs from the mid-4s to the high-7s. While Synchrony and Bread ride a subprime cycle and Wells Fargo's losses climb, Amex's credit metrics sit almost perfectly still. For a spend-centric, affluent-skewed franchise, that stillness is the whole point.
For most issuers, credit is the cycle. For Amex, credit is the constant — and spend is the variable to watch.
What the headline numbers say
Amex's U.S. Consumer Services net charge-off rate registered 3.67% in Q1 2026, within the same narrow 3.5-4.0% band it has held for five quarters. Card-member loans grew to $110.5 billion, up roughly 7% year-over-year — expansion that carried no visible credit cost.
The structural reason is borrower mix. Amex's lending book skews to higher-income, higher-FICO card members who carry balances by choice rather than necessity. That population does not default at the rate of near-prime retail-card borrowers, and it does not swing with the inflation-and-wages cycle that moved Synchrony's and Bread's losses.
What we'll be watching
The risk to Amex is rarely a credit-quality shock. It is demand:
1 · Billed business / spend growth
Amex is a spend-driven economic model. A slowdown in card-member spending is the leading indicator that matters — well before any move in charge-offs.
2 · Lending mix creep
If Amex pushes lending growth down-market to chase yield, the pristine NCO rate is the first place it would show. Watch for any drift above the 4% ceiling.
Amex's Q1 2026 is a reminder that not every card issuer is a credit-cycle play. The franchise to watch on spend, not losses.
By the editors. Cardintel.
Cardintel
Issuer brief · Q1 2026
American Express
Prime Has No Cycle
24 pages · cardintel.co
Full report
Download the 24-page Q1 2026 brief
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Credit quality
Net charge-off rate
3.67%
-23 bps
Q1 2026, annualized
30+ day delinquency rate
—
Q1 2026
Net interest margin
—
card segment NIM — sparse
Return on assets
—
consolidated, Q1 2026, annualized
Scale & earnings
Card receivables (EOP)
$110.5B
-3.2%
end of Q1 2026
Card net revenue
$2.0B
+1.6%
Q1 2026, card segment
Provision for credit losses
$4.00M
-20.0%
Q1 2026, card segment
Net charge-offs ($)
$1.0B
-4.2%
Q1 2026
Financial summary
P&L, balance sheet, and key drivers
Standardized issuer-summary format used across all coverage. Switch tabs to compare American Express against a peer; change the table quarter independently of the page anchor.
| Metric | American Express Q1 2026 | Prior Q Q4 2025 | Prior Y Q1 2025 | QoQ | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Card net revenue | $2.0B | — | $1.8B | — | +10.4% |
| Provision for credit losses | $4.00M | — | -$2.00M | — | +300.0% |
| Fee income (non-interest) | — | — | — | — | — |
| Net interest incomeSprint 8 — split out of card net revenue | — | — | — | — | — |
| Noninterest expenseSprint 8 — segment expense extraction | — | — | — | — | — |
| Pretax income | — | — | — | — | — |
| Net income | — | — | — | — | — |
Generated commentary
American Express's P&L in Q1 2026: provision for credit losses fell 20.0% to $4.00M vs Q3 2025; card net revenue rose 1.6% to $2.0B vs Q3 2025. Period-over-period changes flagged below; sparse rows compare against the metric's last reported period rather than the calendar prior quarter.
$ in cents (formatted as $B / $M / $). Rows marked “pending” are tracked and will populate as the corresponding ingestion lands. Source: SEC EDGAR 10-K / 10-Q segment data and FFIEC Call Reports.
Net charge-off rate — 5-year history
Net charge-off rate for American Express (solid) vs. the bank peer median (dashed) and 90th percentile (dotted). Use the controls above to overlay individual peers or a macroeconomic series on the right axis. Source: SEC 10-K/10-Q filings and FFIEC Call Reports; macro series via FRED.
Source: SEC EDGAR 10-Q filings + FFIEC Call Reports. Updated June 4, 2026.Methodology