Days after winning regulatory approval for its blockbuster acquisition of Discover Financial Services, Capital One Financial said that its expectations for what the integration will cost haven’t changed. The $35 billion transaction has been and will continue to be costly, but Capital One Chairman and CEO Richard Fairbank said that the $1.5 billion estimate for integration expenses during 2027 remain intact — except shifted out by about six months to account for the deal’s longer-than-expected regulatory review. Fairbank told that he thinks this transaction is different from other acquisitions, where the goal is “to take two companies, squash them together and rip out the costs.” “I think that Discover brings us a growth platform, both on the network side and with respect to their card franchise, that allows us to preserve the best of what they do, leverage a lot of Capital One’s capabilities that we bring and build something really special,” Fairbank said. Upon the closing of the Discover merger, the combined company will have $660 billion of assets. Capital One will own a massive chunk — estimated to be between one-fourth and one-third — of the subprime card market. And it will operate Discover’s payment network, instead of having to use Visa’s or Mastercard’s — an element of the transaction that Fairbank has called “the holy grail.” But the road to getting there isn’t completely nailed down. A huge portion of the integration will involve Capital One bringing Discover up to speed on the technology infrastructure it has spent years modernizing. Meanwhile, Discover will take Capital One “back to the world of data centers,” Fairbank said. He added that his bank has experience ramping up the tech stack of a credit card company. However, running a payment network is new to Capital One, and “very complex and very high stakes,” Fairbank said. Another key facet of the merger is Capital One’s effort to increase acceptance of Discover’s payment network internationally. Fairbank characterized this spending as a long-haul type of investment, measured in “a whole bunch of years.” Kyle Sanders, an analyst at Edward Jones, thinks it will take several years for the merger’s benefits to manifest themselves, and that near-term integration challenges “will present obstacles.” Last week, the deal earned the approval of the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, but regulators ordered Discover to pay more than $1 billion in fines and restitution in connection with the company’s earlier overcharging of merchants. When asked about recent regulatory developments, Fairbank said that Capital One knew risk management would be “a big investment,” but the company hasn’t changed its outlook on how much those efforts will cost.