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Capital One’s Richard Fairbank, chairman and CEO made it clear that the deal will be not just a payments story but also a banking story — one example being the way it will augment the acquirer’s long-term effort to build a national full-service digital bank with a thin physical presence. He also made it clear that he’s playing a long game, although there may be early payoffs. Case in point: Discover’s debit network. This is one of the jewels of the deal, in part because it makes its owner exempt from Durbin amendment restrictions on debit interchange pricing. Fairbank means to treat this jewel carefully. One aspect of this is that the network will retain the Discover name — “absolutely the right brand for the network.” Indeed, Fairbank plans to continue using the Discover brand on the credit card side as well. Fairbank told analysts that “we don’t plan to come roaring out of this acquisition on national TV really leaning into the network brand.” Instead, the concentration will be on moving the Capital One debit business to the Discover debit network, as well as some of its credit card business. He pointed out that a large portion of Capital One’s existing customer base consists of people who travel internationally. Then building international acceptance will be a priority, ahead of promoting the brand name in its new setting. The potential competitive potential of this move can’t be ignored, according to Tony DeSanctis, senior director at Cornerstone Advisors.  “By no longer having to adhere to Durbin requirements, they will have the opportunity to dictate interchange rates,” says DeSanctis. “Merchants can choose not to accept the cards, but for the most part the rates aren’t going to be so prohibitive that folks won’t accept them.” Being able to squeeze more interchange out of the process will enable Capital One to offer attractive rewards to debit card holders, he continues. This will draw certain customer segments to Capital One for banking. “So this has the potential to be incredibly disruptive in terms of growing their deposit base and their core banking activities,” says DeSanctis.  DeSanctis says the ability to pull in higher interchange fees would give Capital One an additional adjustment knob in competing for deposits. It could tweak rewards to find the optimal balance points with deposit account interest. Forte Fintech’s Erin McCune points out yet another banking side to the deal: Greater opportunities to provide financing to small businesses that are hungry for working capital. McCune says Capital One could parlay its increased presence in payments, and its new direct relationship with merchants, into an opportunity to offer such financing. This could be done at more attractive pricing and terms than the nonbank providers currently offer, she suggests. Another potential avenue is facilitation of agentic AI purchasing, which McCune sees as the wave of the future.

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