American Express shares fell after the Wall Street Journal reported that the investigative arms of three US financial agencies were investigating the card issuer’s sales practices.
The company’s shares fell 1.3% on Thursday, after falling 5% earlier.
The offices of the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp inspectors are investigating whether AmEx, based in New York, pushed its cards to small business customers with deceptive tactics and whether customers were harmed, according to the Journal.
Citing current employees or former employees of the issuer, the Journal reported in March that, in an effort to increase sales, some AmEx employees misrepresented the card’s rewards and fees or issued cards that customers had not sought out.
AmEx said on Thursday in a statement that it has “robust compliance policies and controls in place, and [does] do not tolerate misconduct. “The company added that it has cooperated with the review of regulators of small business card practices that occurred in 2015 and 2016.
“We conducted an independent and detailed analysis of these sales for that period and found no evidence of a pattern of misleading sales practices,” said AmEx. “The commercial purchasing group responsible for these sales represented approximately 0.25 percent of the total 65 million new cards that American Express purchased worldwide between 2014 and 2019. We take these issues seriously and will continue to cooperate with our regulators. “