Businessweek

y 10% discounts at select suppliers of travel, business services, and products through OPEN Savings; expense management tools and reporting; online account management capabilities; proprietary and third-party business solutions to support everyday business operations, such as business travel and international payments; resources to help improve and manage a business through the community-driven Website, OPEN Forum; and client managers for its top-spending clients to support business growth. In 2012, the company continued to improve its small business offerings by launching an enhanced Plum Card that provides payment flexibility for small businesses. OPEN engages in advocacy efforts on behalf of the U.S. small businesses. These advocacy efforts include its Victory in Procurement program to help small businesses obtain government contracts, programs designed to help women entrepreneurs create, improve, and sustain businesses. In 2012, the company led the third Small Business Saturday, a day to increase consumer awareness and patronage of local businesses and their role in the economy and local neighborhoods. Regulation In the United States, the company is subject to various federal laws and regulations, including the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (which generally prohibits discrimination in the granting and handling of credit); the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), as amended by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act) (which regulates use by creditors of consumer credit reports and credit prescreening practices and requires certain disclosures when an application for credit is rejected); the TILA (which requires extensive disclosure of the terms upon which credit is granted), including the amendments to TILA that were adopted through the enactment of the Fair Credit and Charge Card Disclosure Act (which mandates certain disclosures on credit and charge card applications); the Fair Credit Billing Act (which regulates the manner in which billing inquiries are handled and specifies certain billing requirements); the Truth in Savings Act (which requires certain disclosures about rates paid and other terms of deposit accounts); the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (which governs disclosures and settlement of transactions for electronic funds transfers and customer rights and liability arising from the use of ATMs and other electronic banking services, and after the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, imposes a cap on debit card interchange fees and prohibits exclusivity arrangements for payment card networks); the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (the ‘CARD Act’) (which prohibits certain acts and practices in connection with consumer credit card accounts); the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 (the ‘CFPA’) (Title X of Dodd-Frank); the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (which prohibits contacting customers on their cellular telephones without their express consent, and provides for significant statutory damages); Regulation Z (which implements TILA and is amended by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the ‘Federal Reserve’) to revise the open end consumer credit disclosure requirements and implement the requirements of the CARD Act); and federal and state laws and regulations that prohibit engaging in unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts and practices in offering consumer financial products and services. Competition As a card issuer, the company competes in the United States with financial institutions that issue general-purpose charge and revolving credit cards (such as Bank of America, Capital One Financial, Citibank Canada, and JPMorgan Chase) and Discover Financial Services, which issues the Discover card on the Discover network. American Express U.S. Consumer Travel Network The American Express U.S. Consumer Travel Network provides travel, financial, and Cardmember services to consumers through the company-owned travel service offices, call centers, the Consumer Travel Website, and the American Express Representative Network (which consists of independently-owned travel agency locations that