“We plan to invest at these levels while generating strong bottom-line growth in line with our aspirations.”

In context

“rt of our technology spend drives growth. For example, the new travel app or the enhancements we made to the American Express app for the platinum refresh. These expenses are reported in operating expenses. And third, are the customer benefits and partnerships associated with card membership. Which generate demand and customer engagement. The recent step up in card member services on the platinum card is a good example of this type of investment. These expenses show up in VCE. Every year, we balance how much of these investments to deploy for growth across these investment categories. For 2026, we plan for investment levels to continue to be high with a record level of technology development, the step up in the value proposition of our US platinum cards, and with a large marketing budget. We plan to invest at these levels while generating strong bottom-line growth in line with our aspirations. Moving on to capital. We continue to deliver very strong returns with an ROE of 34% for the full year. We returned $7.6 billion of capital to our shareholders including $2.3 billion of dividends and $5.3 billion of share repurchases. In 2026, we expect to increase our quarterly dividend by 16% to 95¢ per share. Consistent with our approach of growing our dividend in line with earnings, and our 20 to 25 target payout ratio. With this planned increase, the dividend will be up by more than 80% since 2022. And we have reduced the share count by 7% since then. While maintaining capital well in excess of regulatory minimum levels. This demonstrates our confidence in the sustainability of earnings generated by our model and our disciplined capital management. We also have a robust and diverse fu”