Capital One Financial Corporation
Capital One Financial Corporation is a prominent financial services company based in McLean, Virginia, specializing in consumer credit and retail banking. Founded in 1994, it has grown to provide a diverse range of products including credit cards, home and auto loans, and commercial banking services. As of 2022, Capital One reported significant financial metrics, including $300.8 billion in deposits and $455.2 billion in total assets. The company is well-known for its innovative marketing strategies, featuring memorable advertising campaigns and sponsorships in college athletics, which reflect its commitment to visibility and brand recognition.
Capital One operates branches across the United States, with a notable presence in several key states, and has expanded internationally with divisions in Canada and the UK. The company's history includes numerous acquisitions aimed at diversifying its offerings and enhancing its technological capabilities. Despite its success, Capital One has faced challenges, including a significant data breach in 2019 that compromised the personal information of millions of customers. Additionally, it has received scrutiny over its debt recovery practices and customer complaint rates. Overall, Capital One plays a significant role in the consumer credit landscape and continues to adapt to the evolving financial environment.
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Capital One Financial Corporation
Company information
- Date founded: 1994
- Industry: Consumer credit; retail banking
- Corporate headquarters: McLean, Virginia
- Type: Public
The Capital One Financial Corporation, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, is a financial services company that provides an array of products to individuals, small businesses, and larger commercial and real estate enterprises. In 2022, Capital One reported $300,789 billion in deposits and $455,249 billion in total assets. Capital One, NA operates branches across the US, including several café locations.
Capital One has several business areas. The best known of these is the credit card operation, which offers services to individual consumers and small businesses. Capital One also operates a consumer bank that offers banking to small businesses and consumers, including services such as home and auto loans. The scope of Capital One's commercial banking operation is to serve commercial real estate, as well as commercial and industrial customers. The company's banking division operates branches primarily in New York, New Jersey, Texas, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC. Finally, the company manages a corporate investment portfolio that includes both US government (or government-backed) securities as well as commercial securities.
Capital One is well known through its advertising campaigns and sponsorship of college athletic events. In 2022, its marketing expenses were increased by $1.1 billion, totaling $4.02 billion. Its advertisements, many developed by DDB of Chicago, have featured elements ranging from comedic depictions of Vikings to famous spokespeople such as Alec Baldwin, Samuel L. Jackson, Charles Barkley, and Spike Lee. DDB's ads for Capital One have won multiple industry awards, including the Clio Sports Award.
Capital One has a division in Canada, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. That division was started in 1996. The company also has a division that operates in the United Kingdom.
History
Capital One Financial Corporation began its existence in 1994 as a spinoff of the Signet Banking Corporation. (Signet was itself created less than a decade prior from the merger of three regional banks, among them the Bank of Virginia, which had issued the first credit card in the early 1950s.) This new organization, initially called OakStone Financial Corporation, was to be a consumer credit (i.e., credit card) business that would be more aggressive in marketing and in seeking opportunities for growth. Just two years later, in 1996, Capital One opened offices in Canada and the United Kingdom.
One of the early strategies was to expand Capital One's operations so that it was more than a consumer credit lender. Upon receiving federal approval in 1996, Capital One established Capital One FSB, thus entering the retail banking market. By the end of 1997, Capital One's customer base numbered 11.7 million. The company's managed loans at that time totaled $14.2 billion. Three years later, that amount had more than doubled, totaling $29.5 billion. In order to grow, the company heavily relied upon its information intensive analysis (information-based strategy) to identify new areas of business as well as to identify new customers. The identification of potential new business areas led to acquisitions of other lenders.
In 2001 Capital One purchased AmeriFee Corporation, which specialized in loans for consumers looking to finance elective medical and dental procedures. Capital One did, however, leave that business in 2009, at that time providing coverage to a network of thirty thousand physicians and dentists. Also in 2001, the company added to its auto finance operations by acquiring PeopleFirst.
Further acquisitions over the years included Hibernia Corporation (2005), North Fork Bancorporation (2007), Chevy Chase Bank (2009), ING Direct (2012), and HSBC North America's Card and Retail Services business in 2012. In addition to the acquisition of these financial institutions, the company acquired design and user experience consultancy Adaptive Path in 2014 and a design, development, and marketing consultancy, Monsoon, in July of the following year. In 2015 Capital One also purchased the healthcare financial services business of General Electric in a reported $9 billion deal. Another notable acquisition came in 2018 when Capital One bought the consumer digital identity services company Confyrm for an undisclosed amount.
Capital One has twice withdrawn from the mortgage industry. The first time was in 2007, when the company closed its GreenPoint Mortgage unit, citing "unforeseen challenges" and "an unprecedented set of market circumstances." This closure came amid others during the lead-up to the 2007–10 financial crisis caused in part by the subprime mortgage crisis and the resulting US housing bubble collapse of late 2007. In 2011 Capital One acquired the online bank ING Direct USA, thus reentering the mortgage market, as ING then held about $41 billion in home loans. The second exit came in November 2017, when Capital One announced that it would no longer originate mortgage or home equity loans; this time, the company cited an overly competitive marketplace that prevented the division from being profitable.
In July 2019, Capital One released a statement that an unauthorized individual had gained access to and obtained personal information about credit card customers and credit card applicants. The personal information—including credit scores, payment history, and contact information—of approximately one hundred million US customers and six million Canadian customers was compromised. In addition, the individual gained access to about 140,000 Social Security numbers, 80,000 bank account numbers, and one million Canadian social insurance numbers. The perpetrator was later identified as software engineer Paige Thompson, who was arrested by the FBI. In the early 2020s, the company continued to grow, taking over Walmart's credit card programs in 2019. It became the Major League Baseball's official bank and credit card partner, launched its first external software product, and introduced various new credit card products. In the Capital One 2022 financial report, the company credited their very strong 2022 financial results to their decades-long pursuit of technology improvements and their practice of investing in their employees, among other achievements.
Impact
As a key player in the rise of widespread consumer credit cards, Capital One earned attention by providing personalized services and products that earlier credit card companies did not offer, such as cards with customized graphics. The company also established itself as a leader in using information technology to support its business. By the late 1990s, it had adopted its influential information-based strategy, meaning it made it a priority to gather information on all transactions and then, after analysis, develop or modify products or objectives based on the analysis. Capital One was also a pioneer in developing its information technology programs internally. Meanwhile, the company has touted its commitment to investment in local communities and other aspects of corporate social responsibility.
Despite its success, Capital One has also faced challenges and criticism. According to a ProPublica investigation in eleven states published in 2015, the company led American financial services companies in the number of lawsuits to recover debt from credit card customers. From 2008 to 2010, Capital One launched an estimated 500,000-plus suits a year. After 2011 that number dropped, although the company reportedly still brought debtors to court more frequently than any other financial service company. Additionally, in 2014 Capital One came under fire for its longtime policy that stated it could send representatives to an individual's home or place of work and modify its caller ID when calling customers. Following public protest, Capital One said it would revisit the contracts.
In 2012 Reuters reported that Capital One accounted for 20 percent of consumer complaints while accounting for less than 6 percent of credit card purchases by volume. The specific details, provided by a new database developed by the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), reveal more than 2,700 complaints out of a total of 13,502. Most complaints concerned billing disputes and statements, high interest rates, and consumers receiving unsolicited cards. In 2012 the CFPB and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency fined Capital One $210 million for misleading credit card customers; of that money, $140 million was to be refunded to two million affected customers.
Bibliography
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Merle, Renae. "Capital One Bank to Acquire ING Direct USA." The Washington Post, 16 June 2011, www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/capital-one-bank-to-acquire-ing-direct-usa/2011/06/16/AG4fVzXH‗story.html. Accessed 21 Jan. 2018.
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