I’m not too concerned. I feel good about our starting point and our capital position. As you know, we generate about 30% return on equity, which means that we generate a ton of capital. And for now, we’re not going to change our capital policy. The first thing we do is of course fund the balance sheet then we distribute dividends We feel very confident about the increase that we are planning to do this year. And the rest is going to go in share buyback so that we keep capital between 10% and 11% of our risk weighted asset. And that’s what we’ve done for years, that’s what we’re going to keep doing. And we’re going adapt to the Basel rule. You know we’re running the company conservatively as well with a big buffer over the 7% rate that we have.
And so nothing has changed much on that front, so more to come when we get the final rules.
Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Moshe Orenbuch of TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Moshe Orenbuch: Great. Thanks. And many of my questions have been asked and answered, but hoping to follow up on a comment that you have just made about the pay overtime business. Could you talk a little bit more about the characteristics of that? You mentioned that obviously, that’s going to tenured charge card customers. So the quality is very strong. Just talk a little bit about the yield and how much you’ve seen in kind of growth from that product.
Christophe Le Caillec: Yes. So your description is correct, Moshe. It’s a facility that we attached to our charge card products where they can decide if they want to revolve proportion of their bill. This is the fastest growing category for us in terms of loan growth. It was very well received by the card members. And I don’t know what else I can I can tell you. Remember that their charge card has a no preset limits, which is an important feature here. So it’s a way for us to give them as well — and it’s a painful product so it’s a way for us to give them a facility, where they can revolve over a period of time. And as I’ve said previously, their credit profile is very strong on this product, very much because it is attached to a very premium base, right? And Premium Gold card members are using this facility and revolving from time to time.
Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Sanjay Sakhrani of KBW. Please go ahead.
Sanjay Sakhrani: Thank you. Maybe I could ask the questions regarding what’s embedded in the revenue growth expectations for 2024 differently. If we look at the fourth quarter exit run rate, would that sort of target as to the low end of the guidance range? And then Christophe, you mentioned that lower rates shouldn’t help, but aren’t you guys liability-sensitive on the charge card portfolio? Thanks.
Christophe Le Caillec: So let me take the second question first. We are slightly liability sensitive, and the key assumptions for us — but the common remains that you know in its totality, our total balance sheet and total funding stack level, the impact of rate cuts is going to be very small to our NII. The big unknown here is what’s going to happen to the beta. We’ve been as an industry trending around 0.7 on the way up. We probably got a trend to 0.7 on the way down, but not immediately, and it’s hard to say exactly at this point in time where are we going to be when the Fed starts cutting rates. We are making assumptions with that we think are conservatives, but we don’t know for sure and we’ll see where we are. So there is a bit of uncertainty here, but what is — what you know for sure is that you should not expect a big impact on NII depending on the rate curve.
Going back to your first question around revenue, I just — I don’t have a lot to say on top of what I said earlier and what I’ve said in my prepared remarks. I’m happy to be surprised on the upside if billed business is stronger and card fees, we have good visibility. NII, I think the trend is very established. And on billing, as I said, we are assuming at this point in time something consistent with what we’ve seen in the previous quarters and we’ll see where we are at the end of the year. But if the economy re-bounce, if the growth is a bit stronger than what is expected by economists and our card members are optimistic and keep spending, you know, I’d be delighted to have a higher billed business to report.
Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Dominick Gabriele of Oppenheimer & Co. Please go ahead.
Dominick Gabriele: Hey, good morning, Steve and Christophe. Thanks so much for taking my question. Thanks so much for taking my question. I was just curious about the total card growth. We all know that you’ve seen some really excellent account acquisitions over the last number of years so I was just curious about total card growth versus proprietary cards-in-force growth, in particular this quarter. If there is any color you can provide on why that may diverge or what the strategy is between maybe having more proprietary cards as a percentage of total cards? Anything on that would be excellent. Thanks so much.
Christophe Le Caillec: Yes. So we have about 140 million cards that can transact on our network. Out of the 140 million cards, about 80 million are issued by American Express. That’s what we call the proprietary cards. They represent the bulk of the spend and they drive the very vast majority of our economics. And from a growth rate standpoint, if you look at cards-in-force and it’s — you know, you’ll see that in the details of our disclosures, the proprietary cards-in-force of 5% year-over-year, and the total cards-in-force, so including their cards issued by network partners is up 6%. Does it answer your question?
Dominick Gabriele: Very much. I really appreciate that. Have a good day.
Christophe Le Caillec: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Arren Cyganovich of Citi. Please go ahead.
Arren Cyganovich: Thanks. And maybe I was wondering if you could talk about the plans for the next Platinum refresh in the US. I think the last one on 2021. And whether or not you have any plan to do that this year, and if that’s your guidance for the year as well.
Steve Squeri: Yes. So as you know, we have committed to refreshing 40 products this year, as Christophe has said, and strategically, we look at refreshing all of our products on a sort of three to four year basis. And it’s important because it’s really important to make sure that we keep our products fresh. We’re listening to our customers and putting in those enhancements and the extra value that they want and enable us to make sure from a generational perspective, we are modifying those products as trends change and as our customer needs change. As far as specifically for the Platinum card, we don’t really pre-announce that, and so I think you just have to wait and see.
