Amex CEO Says Company Looking Into Crypto Rewards, But No Plans For Crypto-Linked Cards

Credit card giant American Express Company AXP is looking into rewarding its customers' spending with cryptocurrencies.

What Happened: American Express CEO Stephen Squeri said during a recent Yahoo! Finance interview that the company is looking to give customers "ways, potentially, to redeem your membership rewards points, but I don’t think you’re going to see an American Express card linked to cryptocurrency anytime soon."

Still, he pointed out that the company has already been involved in using cards for stablecoins, and American Express is closely monitoring central bank digital currency developments from the U.S. government.

Visa Inc V and Mastercard Inc MA, meanwhile, have already engaged in crypto-related partnerships. Earlier this month, Mastercard announced a deal with Coinbase Global Inc COIN, for customers to be able to use Mastercard credit and debit cards to make purchases on the crypto exchange’s upcoming NFT marketplace.

In 2020, BlockFi announced a partnership with Visa to let cardholders receive 1.5% of their purchases back in BTC.

See Also: CRYPTO.COM VISA REWARDS CARD REVIEW

Why Amex Is Hesitating: Squeri said that he views cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin BTC/USD as “more of an asset class” not unlike gold, but he believes the price volatility of digital currencies precludes them from being a practical means of payment. He also highlighted crypto's transaction irreversibility — which is one of its features most praised by its community — as a problem, since "you don’t have the dispute rights with it."

Squeri also pointed out that compared to credit cards, crypto holders do not get customer service and extended credit.

He concluded that the two payment methods are fundamentally different. “All of those values that occur within a credit card do not lend themselves to cryptocurrency,” Squeri said.

Photo: Courtesy of The.Comedian on Flickr