What prompted American Express to think of venturing into retail banking despite such depressed market conditions?
Well, in the Indian market, American Express has been witnessing a strong growth in all its product lines. The Amex card base is growing rapidly and recording a growth of 44 per cent, which is twice the market rate of growth. After all, the accurateperformance measure in the card industry is the amount of spending captured on the cards. According to independent studies, the growth in spending on American Express cards in India has been over 75 per cent over the last five years. In addition, the average spend on the American Express card is three to four times more than the average spend on other credit cards in the Indian market. Naturally, we feel bouyant about the Indian market and our retain banking operations called the Personal Financial Services (PFS) — which will launched this year — will be an extension of the high quality, value-added services American Express provides in India. We will offer PFS products and services to all Amex carfd holders as well as other customers who
