Capital One to buy Discover for $35 billion

Capital One said it would buy rival credit card issuer Discover Financial Services for $35.3 billion in stock

(Image credit: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images)

What happened?

Capital One said Monday it would buy rival credit card issuer Discover Financial Services for $35.3 billion in stock. The deal would create the biggest credit card lender in the country, The Washington Post said, citing Bloomberg Intelligence.

Who said what?

"Our acquisition of Discover is a singular opportunity to bring together two very successful companies with complementary capabilities and franchises, and to build a payments network that can compete with the largest payments networks and payments companies,” Capital One founder and CEO Richard Fairbank said.

The commentary

"A space that is already dominated by a relatively small number of megaplayers is about to get a little smaller," said LendingTree analyst Matt Schulz. For consumers, "it's far from clear that bigger means better," Felix Salmon said at Axios. It is "very difficult to imagine" federal regulators allowing the deal to go through, "given the requirement that mergers benefit the public as well as insiders," said Jesse Van Tol, head of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

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What next?

The deal, if cleared by regulators, is expected to close in late 2024 or early 2025.

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.