Capital One

The retail giant has scrapped its credit card partnership with Capital One, its second public spat in recent years with a partner bank. Analysts say it may be a sign that Walmart wants to launch its own credit card on what it hopes will be a financial super-app.

If Capital One successfully buys Discover Financial Services, it would create an entity with an enormous amount of power. That could lead to abuses of vulnerable consumers.

The decision will turn on whether regulators think the merged company would lessen competition or pose a significant threat to the broader economy if it runs into financial distress.

Capital One, like Discover, is showing signs of greater stress in its loan portfolio. Credit-card write-offs totaled $2.2 billion in the first quarter, a 61% increase from a year earlier.

New details have emerged about the negotiations that culminated in Capital One's blockbuster $35 billion agreement to acquire Discover. At one point last December, the two parties broke off discussions, according to a securities filing.

Banking regulators and the Department of Justice must decide whether the blockbuster deal raises antitrust concerns. Looming over their analyses are questions about how broadly or narrowly to define the relevant markets.

Ally Financial ended a six-month search for its next chief executive by hiring Discover CEO Michael Rhodes. The move adds a new wrinkle to Discover's pending sale, though Discover said that Rhodes hadn't been expected to have a long-term role at Capital One following the merger's completion.

The credit card giant says that it is "proactively meeting" with advocacy organizations to gather feedback that would help with the creation of a community benefits plan. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition, which has negotiated 21 such deals since 2016, opposes Capital One's proposed acquisition of Discover.

The blockbuster merger is now in the hands of banking agencies and the Department of Justice, which will have to evaluate its impact on competition.

The lawmakers, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said the deal would further anti-consumer bank consolidation, but also criticized the OCC's proposed changes to the merger process, asking that they be strengthened.

The two companies in the largest bank merger since the 2008 financial crisis released details of their agreement. It leaves the door open for Discover to field better offers, though the payments company would pay a break-up fee of 4% if it accepts one.

In the wake of the largest U.S. bank deal in more than 15 years, industry executives offered mixed views about the prospects for more big acquisitions. They also spoke about the deal's impact on competition in the credit card business.

The credit card lender's blockbuster acquisition of Discover is not guaranteed to get across the finish line. But co-founder and CEO Richard Fairbank appears to see the rewards that would come from controlling a payments network as outweighing the potential downside.

The combined company could streamline card payments in a manner similar to American Express' "three party network" — while also doing more with artificial intelligence and other technologies.

The blockbuster merger proposal will be reviewed at a time when the Biden administration is expressing skepticism about consolidation. Its analysis will have to account for markets dominated by both big banks and the likes of Visa and Mastercard.

Capital One Financial's proposed acquisition of Discover Financial Services would create a credit card behemoth with its own payments network. The deal is likely to draw tough regulatory scrutiny, though analysts say there are many compelling strategic reasons for the combination.

Wells Fargo's Charlie Scharf and Morgan Stanley's James Gorman recorded the biggest gains among the CEOs whose compensation has been disclosed so far.

The stable outlook is an indication that — at least for some lenders — the much-feared cycle of cardholders defaulting on their obligations in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic may not turn out to be so bad.

Retail customers at large banks were a bit more satisfied this year than in 2022, a new J.D. Power study finds. However, more of those same customers are moving cash to — and seeking advice from — wealth management firms and online banks.

Executives at Capital One, U.S. Bank, BMO and Atlantic Union Bank are striving for seamless onboarding and more efficient branch bankers, among other projects on their technology drawing boards.