Originally Posted by
esc2476
FWIW, I do not think that AMEX cares about spend relative to income. They should only care about total spend and that number, based on empirical evidence seems to generally grow until retirement.
It may be that AMEX is trying to lure younger folks who will keep their cards as their spending increases. That, of course, is just pure speculation on my part.
IMO: Amex cares about propensity (which is relative to income) to spend and they have gone out of their way to target people with a) a high propensity to spend b) high incomes. Entry level SWEs in SF and NYC are making ~$200K their first year out of college (
https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Goog...are%20Engineer). Entry-level SWEs at HFTs are making even more (
https://www.levels.fyi/company/Citad...ware-Engineer/). I think posting entry-level quant comp would be too inflammatory for this forum.
Ultimately the question is: what drives the higher propensity to spend for younger people? Is there something innate to being young that drives higher *relative* spending or is it simply a matter of younger people naturally having lower incomes.
If it's the former, Amex is obviously suited to target people that are young and working in jobs that have high starting salaries with very high career earning potential. Personally, that is why I think many (but obviously not all) of the perks Amex and Chase have introduced have been anchored around urban areas (which skew VHCOL and high income).
Also, tbh I personally believe the urban aspect matter more than the age aspect because older product leads, IB/PE/HF/whatever MDs definitely still have high spend.
Also, I think Chase targets the same demographic but for a completely different reason. Don't think Chase is just copying Amex to copy them lol. They are two very different companies issuing credit cards for completely different reasons