Capital One

Capital One is a diversified banking company that offers early and later stage venture, and debt financing investments. Capital One Financial Corporation, incorporated in July 21, 1994, is a diversified banking company focused primarily on consumer and commercial lending and deposit origination. Its principal business segments are Local Banking and National Lending. Local Banking includes consumer, small business and commercial deposits, and lending conducted within its branch network. The National Lending segment consists of three sub-segments: - The U.S. Card sub-segment, which consists of domestic consumer credit and debit card activities; - The Auto Finance sub-segment, which includes automobile and other motor vehicle financing activities, - The Global Financial Services sub-segment consisting of international lending activities, small business lending, installment loans, home loans, healthcare financing and other diversified activities.

1994: The new company was led by Richard Fairbank. It was formed in 1994.

1995: The spinoff is renamed Capital One Financial Corporation.

1996: The company starts doing business in Canada and the United Kingdom. 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. In 1996, Capital One expanded its business operations to the United Kingdom and Canada.

1997: 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.

1998: In July 1998, Capital One acquired auto financing company Summit Acceptance Corporation. With the purchase of Summit Acceptance Corp. in 1998, Capital One entered the automobile finance business. The company was listed in the Standard & Poor's 500, and its stock price hit the $100 mark for the first time in 1998.

1999: The hitherto glowing reports by Capital One dimmed somewhat in 1999. In addition, subprime credit card issuers were being hurt by rising interest rates in mid-1999, but Capital One said that it had already been going after more affluent superprime borrowers, attempting to balance out its loan portfolio. In 1999, Capital One was looking to expand beyond credit cards.

2000: Capital One began a concerted effort to boost brand recognition in 2000. Since its IPO, Capital One had more than quadrupled its earnings, according to Forbes, growing to $470 million in 2000 on credit card receivables of $30 billion. 2000: Capital One is added to the Fortune 500 list. According to Forbes, it is considered one of the top 2000 largest public companies in the world.

2001: In October 2001, PeopleFirst Finance LLC was acquired by Capital One. During 2001, the company ranked high on a number of "best places to work" lists.

2002: Capital One revealed, about mid-July 2002, that the Federal Reserve Board and the Office of Thrift Supervision had taken informal action regarding the company's infrastructure. But more negative news came in October 2002, when Capital One announced that it anticipated a drop-off in growth and a jump in the chargeoff rate.

2006: GreenPoint had been acquired December 2006 when Capital One paid $13.2 billion to North Fork Bancorp Inc.

2007: During the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis, Capital One closed its mortgage platform, GreenPoint Mortgage, due in part to investor pressures. 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.

2008: In 2008, Capital One received an investment of $3.56 billion from the United States Treasury as a result of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

2009: In February 2009, Capital One acquired Chevy Chase Bank for $520 million in cash and stock.

2011: In June 2011, ING Group announced the sale of its ING Direct division to Capital One for $9 billion in cash and stock. In August 2011, Capital One reached a deal with HSBC to acquire its United States credit card operations.

2012: In February 2012, along with several other banks, Capital One announced support for the Isis Mobile Wallet payment system. The acquisition was completed in May 2012. Capital One received permission to merge ING into its business in October 2012, and rebranded ING Direct as Capital One 360 in November 2012.

2013: However, in September 2013, Capital One dropped support for the venture. In 2013, Capital One paid $3.5 million to settle the case, but was not required to directly address the allegations of wrongdoing.

2014: In February 2014, Capital One became a 25% owner in ClearXchange, a Peer-to-peer transaction money transfer service designed to make electronic funds transfers to customers within the same bank and other financial institutions via mobile phone number or email address.

2015: In January 2015, Capital One acquired Level Money, a budgeting app for consumers.

2016: In October 2016, Capital One acquired Paribus, a price tracking service, for an undisclosed amount. In December 2016, Capital One reported $97 billion in outstanding credit card loans in the US and $8 billion in the UK and Canada. In 2016, the credit card business accounted for 62% of its annual revenue, while 25% came from consumer banking, 11% from commercial banking, and 1% in other sources. ClearXchange was sold to Early Warning in 2016.

2017: Apart from auto loans, Capital One was also one of the largest mortgage lenders in the United States before discontinuing the business in November 2017. In November 2017, President of Financial Services Sanjiv Yajnik announced that the mortgage market was too competitive in the low rate environment to make money in the business.

2018: In May 2018, the company acquired Confyrm, a digital identity and fraud alert service.

2021: In November 2021, the company introduced Venture X, a travel rewards credit card, with a $395 annual fee.

According to Capital One. the company mission is: “to help customers succeed by bringing ingenuity, simplicity, and humanity to banking." 

As stated in company website, Capital One vision is: “ change banking for good and to help people live their best lives. Together, the company will build one of America’s leading information-based technology companies."