Capital One Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking, and savings accounts, headquartered in McLean, Virginia with operations primarily in the United States. It is on the list of largest banks in the United States, is the third largest issuer of Visa and Mastercard credit cards and is one of the largest car finance companies in the United States.
The bank has approximately 750 branches, including 30 café style locations, and 2,000 ATMs. It is ranked 106th on the Fortune 500, 15th on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For list, and conducts business in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The company helped pioneer the mass marketing of credit cards in the 1990s.
The company's three divisions are credit cards, consumer banking and commercial banking. As of December 31, 2022, the company had loans receivable of $114 billion from credit cards, $75 billion from auto loans, and $85 billion from commercial loans.
History
Monoline credit card company (1994–2004)
On July 21, 1994, Richmond, Virginia-based Signet Financial Corp (now part of Wells Fargo) announced the corporate spin-off of its credit card division, OakStone Financial, naming Richard Fairbank as CEO. Signet renamed the subsidiary Capital One in October 1994, and the spin-off was completed in February 1995.
At that time, Capital One was a monoline bank, meaning that all of its revenue came from a single product, in this case, credit cards. This strategy is risky in that it can lead to losses during bad times. Capital One attributed its relative success as a monoline to its use of data collection to build demographic profiles, allowing it to target personalized offers of credit directly to consumers.
Expansion into auto loans (1996–present) In 1996, Capital One moved from relying on teaser rates to generate new clients to adopting more innovative techniques that would attract more customers to their business model. At the time, it was losing customers to competitors who offered higher ceilings on loan balances and no-annual-fee accounts. The company came up with co-branded, secured, and joint account credit cards. In mid-1996, Capital One received approval from the federal government to set up Capital One FSB. This meant that the company could now retain and lend out deposits on secured cards and even issue automobile installment loans.
In 1996, Capital One expanded its business operations to the United Kingdom and Canada. This gave the company access to a large international market for its credit cards. An article appearing in Chief Executive in 1997 noted that the company held $12.6 billion in credit card receivables and served more than nine million customers. The company was listed in the Standard & Poor's 500, and its stock price hit the $100 mark for the first time in 1998.
In July 1998, Capital One acquired auto financing company Summit Acceptance Corporation.
In 1999, Capital One was looking to expand beyond credit cards. CEO Richard Fairbank announced moves to use Capital One's experience with collecting consumer data to offer loans, insurance, and phone service.
In October 2001, PeopleFirst Finance LLC was acquired by Capital One. The companies were combined and re-branded as Capital One Auto Finance Corporation in 2003.
In late 2002, Capital One and the United States Postal Service proposed a negotiated services agreement (NSA) for bulk discounts in mailing services. The resulting three-year agreement was extended in 2006. In June 2008, however, Capital One filed a complaint with the USPS regarding the terms of the next agreement, citing the terms of the NSA of Capital One's competitor, Bank of America. Capital One subsequently withdrew its complaint to the Postal Regulatory Commission following a settlement with the USPS.
Automobile loan financer Onyx Acceptance Corporation was acquired by Capital One in January 2005.
Expansion into retail banking (2005–present)
In 2005 Capital One became the first monoline credit card issuer to buy a bank, as it entered into retail banking by acquiring Hibernia National Bank. It purchased the New Orleans, Louisiana-based Hibernia for $4.9 billion in cash and stock. It acquired Melville, New York-based North Fork Bank for $13.2 billion in cash and stock in 2006. The acquisition of retail banks greatly reduced its dependency on the credit-card business alone. It acquired Netspend, a marketer of prepaid debit cards, for $700 million in 2007.