By Saabira Chaudhuri and Daniel Huang 

American Express Co. said it would cut 4,000 jobs as it reported a rise in expenses that disappointed investors eager for the company to show more spending discipline.

The layoffs, affecting about 6% of American Express's 63,000 workforce, are part of a broader restructuring to boost efficiency, company officials said on a conference call to discuss quarterly results Wednesday afternoon.

Amex's revenue and profit increased but not enough to satisfy investors who have grown increasingly demanding of the company's results as the economy grows, consumers get more financially healthy and more people turn in their checks and cash to use plastic.

The New York-based credit-card company run by Chairman and Chief Executive Kenneth Chenault saw its shares drop about 2% in trading after the market closed. The company reported an 11% rise in quarterly profit after the close.

Fourth-quarter profit was $1.45 billion, or $1.39 a share, compared with $1.31 billion, or $1.21 a share, a year earlier. Revenue, net of interest expense, rose 6.6% to $9.11 billion from $8.55 billion a year earlier, helped by a gain on the sale of American Express's investment in Concur Technologies, an expense-management software company.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected a profit of $1.38 a share on revenue of $8.53 billion.

While some analysts had expected AmEx to show strong expense controls, the firm reported that companywide expenses came in at $6.3 billion, up 3%, or 6% when adjusted for foreign-exchange impacts, from a year earlier.

Another sign that the company hasn't cut sharply enough for some investors: Despite previous layoff announcements, Amex's overall head count has remained relatively steady between 61,000 and 63,500 since 2010, according to the firm's annual reports. Amex said that it had used a big part of the gain on its Concur sale on restructuring initiatives. That may lead to cost savings later, but in the fourth quarter, it led to a pretax charge of $313 million.

"A substantial gain allowed us to accelerate some critical initiatives: re-engineering to make American Express more efficient," Mr. Chenault said in prepared remarks.

American Express also spent more during the period on marketing and promotion and renewing its partnership with Delta Air Lines. The company is revving up partnerships with merchants, from Apple Inc. to McDonald's Corp. to Uber to promote mobile payments and its rewards programs.

Wednesday, American Express, which both issues credit and charge cards and owns a processing network, said card-member spending rose 6%, while U.S. loan balances increased 7%. The provision for loans that could sour came in at $582 million, up 22% from a year ago.

Last month, Mr. Chenault said the company was seeing strong holiday spending and that Cyber Monday, the busy online shopping day after Thanksgiving, represented the single largest day of customer spending through its cards in the company's history.

"We've made very good progress against the backdrop of an uneven global economy and the negative impact of a strengthening U.S. dollar," Mr. Chenault said on Wednesday, even as he cautioned that the company faces "competitive and regulatory challenges."

AmEx of late has been falling short of its longtime revenue-growth target of 8%, but the company has been able to meet earnings expectations, in part by controlling expenses.

Also Wednesday, Discover Financial Services posted a 7% increase in fourth-quarter net interest income, but revenue declined and earnings fell below analysts' estimates due in part to changes in the company's customer rewards program.

Discover reported a profit of $404 million, down 33% from $602 million a year earlier. On a per-share basis, earnings were 87 cents, down from $1.23. Earnings excluding items were $553 million, or $1.19 a share.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had projected earnings of $1.30 a share on revenue of $2.2 billion. These estimates generally exclude nonrecurring items.

Shares fell about 3% in after-hours trading.

Revenue net of interest expenses fell 4% to $2.04 billion from $2.13 billion a year ago, reflecting a charge related to a simplification of the company's Cashback Rewards program. The total fell short of the $2.2 billion analysts expected, on average.

The change involves the elimination of Discover's credit-card rewards forfeiture reserve and will make rewards easier for customers to redeem. Overall, the company said in November it would post about $178 million of fourth-quarter charges related to the change.

"We think the changes will be beneficial for our company and have been receiving favorable feedback from our card members," said Chief Executive David Nelms.

Josh Beckerman and Robin Sidel contributed to this article.

Write to Saabira Chaudhuri at saabira.chaudhuri@wsj.com and Josh Beckerman at josh.beckerman@wsj.com

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