As part of its family of corporate card products, American Express launched the Corporate Meeting Card in the United States during 2000. This product provides corporate meeting planners with a tool for consolidating expenses, thereby streamlining the process of paying and tracking meeting invoices. It also provides companies with a more detailed analysis of meeting expenses while minimizing paperwork.

Additionally, we rolled out American Express@Work in the United States, an online service that allows corporate clients to apply for Corporate Cards using a "smart form" that is submitted electronically. In addition to eliminating much of the cost of the paper-based process, this capability has significantly reduced the error rate on the applications we receive each year. Other online tools make it possible for Corporate Card program administrators to instantly approve or cancel cards, update addresses and telephone numbers, or adjust spending limits.

We also launched pilot programs for American Express@Work in the United Kingdom and Australia, and early in 2001 we are planning to roll out additional pilot programs in other parts of Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Combining online travel with automated fulfillment allows travel reservations to be processed seamlessly, without manual intervention, while maximizing savings for corporate clients. In 2000, American Express launched a fully automated reservation and booking process that lowers transaction fees for business travel clients. Additionally, clients of our Corporate Travel Online service can realize ticket prices that are up to 20 percent lower on average than those obtained through conventional channels.

Another notable achievement was the financial progress in our Corporate Travel business in the United States. One of our priorities going into the year was to focus on shifting the economics of our Corporate Services business model, and the effort has succeeded. As we have noted in the past, airline commission cuts and other competitive pressures have challenged the entire industry. Where we once relied on commission revenues from suppliers, we have now shifted toward fee revenues from customers.

Our modest profitability improvement within U.S. Business Travel is the result of the way we now conduct business, rather than our absolute level of sales. We have introduced new technology across many of our business processes, and this will enable us to take and process travel reservations faster and with fewer errors. This will help us to manage and improve our performance across the entire network.

The highly competitive nature of corporate travel will always present a challenge to profitability. On the expense side, however, reengineering and productivity improvements are taking hold. We turned a corner this year, and we hope to sustain that momentum going forward, because corporate travel is an important part of the overall service we provide to large and mid-sized corporations.

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