What’s next for CFPB, $35B Capital One-Discover merger in June

The gradual unwinding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau kept its pace throughout May, with the agency backing away from roughly half of its pending cases and withdrawing nearly 70 guidance documents.

The $35 billion merger between Capital One Financial and Discover Financial Services reached its end after more than 15 months of deliberation and courting industry regulators and investors alike. Now begins a new, albeit slower, race to integrate Discover into Capital One.

These trends and more below.

What Capital One must do to realize its payments ambition

Article by Catherine Leffert and Kevin Wack

Now that the priciest U.S. bank merger of the last 15 years has closed, Capital One Financial has begun the process of integrating Discover Financial Services. It will be a marathon, not a sprint.

The merger, valued around $35 billion when it was announced in early 2024, is not a run-of-the-mill bank deal that centers on streamlining business models or expanding geographies.

While Capital One and Discover both owned large credit card portfolios and sizable online deposit franchises, the latter company also ran its own payment network, presenting Capital One with opportunities and challenges as it seeks to wring value from its purchase, which closed on May 18.

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