Shares of American Express fell after the Wall Street Journal reported that the investigative arms of three U.S. financial agencies were investigating the card issuer’s sales practices.
Shares of the company fell 1.3% on Thursday after falling to 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, based in New York, passed on its cards to small business customers with deceptive tactics and whether it was harmed. to customers, according to the newspaper.
Citing current or former employees of the issuer, the newspaper reported in March that in an effort to increase sales, some AmEx employees misrepresented card rewards and fees or issued cards that customers did not they had sought.
AmEx said in a statement on Thursday that it has “strong policies and compliance controls and [does] not tolerate misconduct. ”The firm added that it has been cooperating with regulators’ review of small business card practices that occurred in 2015 and 2016.
“We conducted a detailed and independent review of these sales from that time period and found no evidence of a pattern of misleading sales practices,” AmEx said. “The commercial acquisition group responsible for these sales accounted for approximately 0.25 percent of the total 65 million new cards that American Express acquired worldwide between 2014 and 2019. We take these issues seriously. and we will continue to cooperate with our regulators. “