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American Express (AmEx) Pauses All New Card Applications 🚨🚨

coolguy1

coolguy1

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Seems like AmEx wants to pause and look back into what they've been doing.
They're pausing all new applications for the time being, probably for the next few months under the reason 'strategic business transformations'.

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This does not affect current users but only the new applications.

They've been getting dragged for a decline in their quality of customer support, lack of new offers and the overall card value going down.
Do you think they will introspect all of it and come back even better and stronger?
 
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SSV said:
This actually sounds more like Amex must be on some big thing... They might even exit India, or sell part of business to someone else / merge with someone... etc .etc.....
In my view , there is some big thing coming up soon...it could be anything... but definitely not a minor change... get ready for the big decision ...
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I don't think any big change in their products and referral benefits , presently thier communications all from usa server so they may build separate one for india , how ever I guess processing of application may be lenient or strict after this hault , i expect new UI amex app with card numbers and latest updates
 
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SSV said:
This actually sounds more like Amex must be on some big thing... They might even exit India, or sell part of business to someone else / merge with someone... etc .etc.....
In my view , there is some big thing coming up soon...it could be anything... but definitely not a minor change... get ready for the big decision ...
Click to expand...
This got me thinking!

While the chances of Amex exiting India are highly unlikely, their balance sheet doesn’t look very good. Their FY24 profits are around 662M rupees ( around 8M USD based on the March 2024 exchange rate), down from 707M rupees the previous year.

For an entity like Amex. $8M in profit is nothing, especially considering their revenue of 22B rupees. A profit margin of just ~3% is quite low for a financial institution.

I suspect that FY25 profits may declined further, particularly with MGM gaining attraction recently.

Source: https://www.americanexpress.com/con...nancial-disclosures/March_2024_FINANCIALS.pdf

Who knows? If there's a product overhaul, we might finally get the Gold Card in a metal variant with multipliers on day to day transactions. they really needs to bridge the gap between the Plat Travel and the Plat Charge. And for god's sake, it's NOT the Platinum Reserve!
 
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Indian said:
I don't think any big change in their products and referral benefits , presently thier communications all from usa server so they may build separate one for india , how ever I guess processing of application may be lenient or strict after this hault , i expect new UI amex app with card numbers and latest updates
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About the "Communications from USA part" this may not be correct.

I have a friend who works for a financial institution that is not originated from India. She mentioned that the RBI has a pretty strict mandate on data localization and does not allow any payment related data to be stored in data centers outside India. Even if financial institutions use cloud offerings like AWS or GCP, the compute engines processing the payments and the data warehouses / data lakes, must be hosted in India.

And I am not sure Amex is an exception of this.
 
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gg123 said:
This got me thinking!

While the chances of Amex exiting India are highly unlikely, their balance sheet doesn’t look very good. Their FY24 profits are around 662M rupees ( around 8M USD based on the March 2024 exchange rate), down from 707M rupees the previous year.

For an entity like Amex. $8M in profit is nothing, especially considering their revenue of 22B rupees. A profit margin of just ~3% is quite low for a financial institution.

I suspect that FY25 profits may declined further, particularly with MGM gaining attraction recently.

Source: https://www.americanexpress.com/con...nancial-disclosures/March_2024_FINANCIALS.pdf

Who knows? If there's a product overhaul, we might finally get the Gold Card in a metal variant with multipliers on day to day transactions. they really needs to bridge the gap between the Plat Travel and the Plat Charge. And for god's sake, it's NOT the Platinum Reserve!
Click to expand...
Amex in India's CC market is keeping baby steps, they have a long way to go capture the market like they have in US.
Even many high end restaurants/retail stores don't accept Amex where supposedly Amex users are supposed to be paying with Amex cards.
MGM program has been good for them in getting new users but definitely higher CAC than other Indian banks.
 
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American Express is reviewing its policy towards issuing cards.
Off late they have realized that MGM loophole is being utilised to the core and hence in last April, they removed the free card, but still MGM loophole is being utilised.
Compliance is another cause of concern to them and hence they are gearing up for handling so many things that are not existing with Amex today (They only have one method of KYC completion today while all other players have multiple modes of KYC).
Also, all other players have huge number of cards, Co-branded, Invite-only, Organic, specially for HNIs, Specially for New to Credit and so on, while Amex doesn't today serve all ranges. Amex might want to limit themselves to very niche market or should open up to everyone else. Today it is between both.
I saw someone commenting on infrastructure piece. While I cannot comment on their existing infra, changing that will not any thing else than a miracle for companies of this scale.

I can assure they have no plans to exit India Market because they are working towards restructuring some things (why would some one want to restructure so many things if they have plans to exit the market).
 
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drsel said:
I got my cards approved in two or three days
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Guess, I am the most unlucky one. Not only I was shocked to see such delay but the person who referred me and everyone who has Amex experience. What's most frustrating is that application is still open and there are complaints flying all over about it but no solid reason coming from their customer care executives.
 
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I already hold AmEx MRCC card. Applied for Gold Charge Card on 06.03.2025 . Uploaded documents . Video KYC exempted since got MRCC card in last 30 days . When I contacted AmEx Customer care regarding the application, this is the reply I got (attachment) . I will update in this forum once I get any update regarding my application from AmEx.
 

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Localization of data servers could be the primary reason. I was under the impression this was already completed.
Reason for strategic business review is the number of cards issued and new customers acquired has gone up immensely (due to MGM abuse, etc) but card spends/total MDR receipts have not gone up accordingly.

They want customers who use their cards. This has not been working well in India. I suspect sign-up and referral bonuses will reduce/go away and convert to more spend/tier based retention offers and bonuses.
 
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