Advocates for marginalized communities oppose the merger of Capital One and Discover, National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) President and CEO Jesse Van Tol said Tuesday.
“It is very difficult to imagine how federal regulators could allow Capital One to buy Discover given the requirement that mergers benefit the public as well as insiders,” Van Tol said. “I oppose this deal and will recommend NCRC members challenge it as well. Capital One has a pattern of making deals that benefit the bank, but not customers and communities. Their terrible track record on compliance – including numerous BSA/AML violations – should give the regulators pause. The deal also poses massive antitrust concerns, given the vertical integration of Capital One’s credit card lending with Discover’s credit card network.”
Capital One is the ninth-largest bank in the country. Discover is the fourth-largest credit card network in the country with about one in every eleven credit cards operating on its network.
In 2021, the Treasury Department fined Capital One $390 million for years of chronic violations of Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML) laws.
I have trusted Discover card for 20 years and Discover bank I have used recently. When I heard about this merger, I do not trust Capitol One, I moved my money from Discover bank and I am looking for my next safe place with high interest to move it to. I will not work in any financial transactions that Capitol One has their fingers on.
It should be more than obvious to any who cares or is the least bit concerned about the decades long monopolization of not only the financial sector but most all consumer products and services sectors across the world that this is a major long term threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Not to be dramatic but these kinds of mergers are literally causing humans needless suffering and premature illness and deaths on a worldwide basis. Dollars are the lifeblood of societies and when you increase the pressure of financial expenses on societies you affect their correlative personal health. Killing off potential clients does not make for long term success vs short term profit increases. The trade off has proven over and over again to be a social disrupter.