AmEx quietly hiked forex prices on business clients without warning, employees say

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For more than a decade, American Express Co.’s foreign-exchange unit recruited business clients with offers of low currency-conversion rates before quietly raising their prices, according to people familiar with the matter.

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 foreign-exchange international payments department routinely increased conversion rates without notifying customers in a bid to boost revenue and employee commissions, the people said. The practice, widespread within the forex department, was occurring until early this year and dates back to at least 2004, the people said.

The practice targeted mostly small and midsize businesses, the people said, a group of customers that accounts for about a quarter of the company’s credit-card revenue. AmEx, one of the largest small-business card issuers in the U.S., earlier this year said it hoped to become the leading payments and working-capital provider for small and middle-market companies.

AmEx said it doesn’t have contractual pricing arrangements with most of its foreign-exchange customers. “We have training, control and compliance oversight and believe that our transactions are completed and reported in a fair and transparent manner at the rates which the client has authorized,” said spokeswoman Marina Norville.

An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.

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