More access to cardholder and merchant data also gives the card network an edge in fraud detection over its rivals.

Keeping fraud at bay is tied to two factors for American Express: its closed network structure and its use of artificial intelligence, the company contends.

Amex this year once again charted the lowest fraud rate among major U.S. card networks, according to the industry research publication Nilson Report.

While Amex does not publicly release its exact fraud rate, the card issuer touted its low fraud track record over the past 19 years in a July 21 press release, citing Nilson’s February issue.

The low fraud rate reflects the New York company being an early adopter of cutting edge fraud detection technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, said Amber Gupta, Amex’s executive vice president for global decision science.

“As issuer and acquirer, we can see fraud attacks from different angles and our data feeds directly back into our fraud detection models, which helps us create the best possible outcome,” Gupta said in an interview this month.

Visa did not respond to an interview request. The San Francisco-based card network, the largest in the U.S., tracks fraud closely and has invested billions of dollars in combatting it, including acquiring the company Biocatch this month for $2.4 billion.

Visa’s annual 2026 Global eCommerce payments and Fraud report, produced in cooperation with the Merchant Risk Council, said “fraud rates are down across the board, reversing a multi-year trend of increasing incidence.”

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