
American Express, Synchrony Financial and the Changing Credit Card Landscape - naftaliharris
http://www.punchcardresearch.com/welcome-to-adult-life-american-express-synchrony-financial-the-changing-credit-card-landscape/
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encoderer
Amex cards were once the clear winner in terms of rewards, perks and prestige.
That hasn't been the case for several years. The SPG card discussed in the
article--widely known as the most lucrative Amex--isn't nearly as valuable to
me as, say, the newly introduced Chase Sapphire Reserve. Their flagship
Platinum card used to be second to none for traveller perks. In the last
decade Airline consolidation and competition with Airlines own co-branded
cards has chipped away at the value of the Plat. You see things like amex
being forced to build their own airport lounges, far from high-margin
financial services..

That said, if you buy groceries for a family, I still haven't found a better
card than their Blue Cash Preferred at 6% cashback.

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qwrusz
> "I think there is a 33% chance innovation in the payments industry has a
> material impact on SYF’s business in the next 10 years"

This sentence seems very broad/generalized for a conclusion. 10 years is a
long time. 33% is a like a sigma (~coin flip basically).

I think there is a 100% chance innovation has an impact on SYF's business over
the next 10 years - too soon to say if good or bad impact & too many factors
to plot a probability tree with a 10 year horizon.

Also: SYF (Synchrony) still has ties to General Electric even though it is
technically spun off from GE Capital. SYF's CEO is just the old GE Cap CEO. I
think the article should've mentioned that relationship as it influences the
business still.

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madengr
Well they did screw up by losing Coscto.

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oneloop
Well..... what do you mean by screw up? If the forces of capitalism are coming
after your margin, did they screw up by losing Costco? Or did they screw up by
not remaining competitive? Inside Amex, if you had given the Costco account to
a manager that did a better job, he would at best buy Amex a few years before
the inevitable happened. That's hardly a screw up.

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jgalt212
> Because of the revenues generated from higher-spending Cardmembers, Amex has
> the cash to invest in more attractive rewards and other benefits to
> Cardmembers

That's sort of bogus, and more than offset by the the high interest rates
charged by Visa and Mastercard issuing banks to subsidize their respective
rewards programs.

