American Express CEO on outlook for crypto and digital currencies

In a new interview with Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi, Stephen Squeri American Express CEO, discussed his outlook for small business and the upcoming holiday season

Video Transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: When is the AmEx crypto link card going to hit?

STEPHEN SQUERI: Probably not going to see an AmEx crypto link card anytime soon. But let me talk about digital currencies for a second here. When you look at digital currencies, you're looking at three types. You're looking at traditional cryptocurrency, your Ethereum, your XRP, your Bitcoin, you're looking at stablecoins, JP Morgan has a stablecoin, there's a Facebook diem. And you're looking at government backed digital currencies.

When I look at cryptocurrencies, I look at crypto and the ones I described as really more of an asset class. And I sort of view it as gold. I don't see it as really something that's going to make inroads from a credit card perspective, or even a debit card perspective in terms of payments. And why? Well number one, there's still tremendous fluctuations. Number two, you don't have the service with it. You don't have the dispute rights with it. You're not getting rewards. And you're not extending credit.

And so all of those values that occur within a credit card do not lend themselves to cryptocurrency. Having said that, look. We're involved with using the AmEx card for stablecoins, we watch government backed digital currencies very, very carefully, we're exploring other 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.

BRIAN SOZZI: Is it too risky to go down that route, Steve?

STEPHEN SQUERI: Well, I mean, look. We don't use the American Express card to buy gold or to buy stocks. And if you take my position that cryptocurrency is an asset class, we're not using the card for that. And so it's not something that we think we need to do.