Capital One

In October 2001, PeopleFirst Finance was acquired by Capital One. The companies were combined and re-branded as Capital One Auto Finance Corporation in 2003.

In late 2002, Capital One and the United States Postal Service proposed a negotiated services agreement (NSA) for bulk discounts in mailing services. The resulting three-year agreement was extended in 2006. In June 2008, however, Capital One filed a complaint with the USPS regarding the terms of the next agreement, citing the terms of the NSA of Capital One's competitor, Bank of America. Capital One subsequently withdrew its complaint to the Postal Regulatory Commission following a settlement with the USPS.

Automobile loan financer Onyx Acceptance Corporation was acquired by Capital One in January 2005.

2005–present

In 2005, Capital One acquired New Orleans, Louisiana-based Hibernia National Bank for $4.9 billion in cash and stock, becoming the first monoline credit card issuer to buy a bank. This reduced its dependency on the credit-card business.

Capital One acquired Melville, New York-based North Fork Bank and its subsidiary, GreenPoint Mortgage, for $13.2 billion in cash and stock in 2006. In August 2007, during the subprime mortgage crisis, Capital One closed GreenPoint Mortgage, due in part to investor pressures, cutting 1,900 jobs and leading to $860 million in charges.

In August 2007, Capital One agreed to acquire NetSpend for $700 million. In November 2007, the transaction was modified; Capital One instead acquired just a minority interest in NetSpend.

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. In June 2009, Capital One repurchased the stock the company issued to the U.S. Treasury for $3.67 billion, resulting in a profit of over $100 million to the U.S. Treasury.

In 2008, Capital One debuted its blue and red "swoosh" logo, and began a $13 billion marketing campaign. The similarity of the logo to that of Credit One Bank, which adopted a similar logo in 2006, caused confusion among consumers, with many not realizing they were separate companies. In February 2009, Capital One acquired Chevy Chase Bank for $520 million in cash and stock. In January 2011, Capital One acquired Canada-based Hudson's Bay Company's private credit card portfolio from GE Financial.

In April 2011, Capital One signed a deal with Kohl's to handle Kohl's private label credit card program that was previously serviced by Chase Bank for a seven-year period for an undisclosed amount. The contract was extended several times.

In June 2011, ING Group announced the sale of its ING Direct division to Capital One for $9 billion in cash and stock. The transaction was scrutinized by Barney Frank, Thomas M. Hoenig, and others on the basis of the bank becoming too big to fail, but nevertheless, the acquisition received regulatory approval and was completed in February 2012. ING Direct was rebranded as Capital One 360 in March 2013, a move announced to customers in November 2012.

In August 2011, Capital One acquired the U.S. credit card operations of HSBC. Capital One paid $31.3 billion in exchange for $28.2 billion in loans and $600 million in other assets. The acquisition was completed in May 2012. The acquisition also included private issued credit cards for such companies as Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Lord & Taylor that were previously handled by HSBC.

In February 2012, along with several other banks, Capital One announced support for the Isis Mobile Wallet payment system. However, in September 2013, Capital One dropped support for the venture.

In 2012, Capital One closed 41 branch locations.

In February 2014, Capital One amended its terms of use to allow it to "contact you in any manner we choose", including a "personal visit... at your home and at your place of employment". It also asserted its right to "modify or suppress caller ID and similar services and identify ourselves on these services in any manner we choose". The company stated that it would not actually make personal visits to customers except "As a last resort,... if it becomes necessary to repossess [a] sports vehicle". Capital One also attributed its assertion of a right to "spoof" as necessary because "sometimes the number is 'displayed differently' by 'some local phone exchanges,' something that is 'beyond our control'".

In February 2014, Capital One acquired 25% of ClearXchange, a peer-to-peer transaction money transfer service. ClearXchange was sold to Early Warning in 2016. In October 2014, Capital One acquired Adaptive Path, a San Francisco-based user experience and digital design consultancy. In January 2015, Capital One acquired Level Money, a budgeting app for consumers. In July 2015, the company acquired Monsoon, a design studio, development shop, marketing house and strategic consultancy. In 2015, Capital One acquired General Electric's Healthcare Financial Services unit, which included $8.5 billion in loans made to businesses in the healthcare industry, for $9 billion.

In October 2016, Capital One acquired Paribus, a price tracking service, for an undisclosed amount. The company exited the mortgage origination business in November 2017 due to competition, laying off 1,100 employees.

In January 2018, Capital One sold its online brokerage with more than 1 million brokerage accounts to E-Trade for $170 million. In May 2018, the company acquired Confyrm, a digital identity and fraud alert service. In July 2018, Capital One sold its full-service investment advisory and brokerage division to Woodbury Financial. In November 2018, Capital One acquired Wikibuy, a shopping comparison app and browser extension from an Austin, Texas start-up business and renamed it Capital One Shopping. In June 2019, Capital One acquired BlueTarp Financial, a business-to-business credit services provider. In July 2019, Capital One signed a deal with Walmart to handle Walmart's private label and co-branded credit card programs that was previously serviced by Synchrony Financial. Walmart terminated the deal in April 2024 after customer service failures by Capital One. In August 2019, Capital One acquired KippsDeSanto, an investment bank focused on government contractors.

In October 2021, Capital One acquired the healthcare investment bank of TripleTree Holdings.

In November 2021, the company introduced Venture X, an incentive program credit card, with a $395 annual fee.

In March 2022, Capital One announced a partnership with Vivid Seats to launch Capital One Entertainment, a rewards programs for cardholders.

In February 2024, Capital One agreed to acquire Discover Financial in an all-stock deal worth $35.3 billion, making it the largest credit card issuer in the U.S. The deal was approved by U.S. banking regulators in April 2025 after an investigation by the Attorney General of New York and a proposed consumer class action lawsuit by customers on anti-trust concerns. The acquisition was completed in May 2025.

In November 2025, Capital One acquired Hopper Travel Software, which powered Capital One Travel. In March 2026, Capital One announced it would lay off over 1,100 employees from the former Discover headquarters. In April 2026, the company acquired Brex for $5.15 billion. Brex had around 1,100 employees.

Capital One was alerted to the breach on July 17, 2019, 12 days before it was publicly acknowledged. Several Capital One customers stated that the first time they heard about the hack was through the media and the bank did not disclose the breach or explain its implications to affected customers. On social media and in the mainstream press, Capital One's contradictory July 2019 press statement was mocked for saying "No bank account numbers or Social Security numbers were compromised," but then listing hundreds of thousands of bank account numbers and Social Security numbers that were compromised.

In August 2020, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors announced a cease and desist order against Capital One resulting from the data breach. The order mandated, among other things, significant improvements in Capital One's governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) practices. The Federal Reserve ended the enforcement action in 2023.

Lawsuits were filed against Capital One and its employees in federal and circuit courts.

Understatement of losses

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that Capital One understated auto loan losses during the 2008 financial crisis. In 2013, Capital One paid $3.5 million to settle the case, but was not required to directly address the allegations of wrongdoing.

Bank fraud, money laundering, and possible racketeering

In 2018, Capital One was fined $100 million by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for failure to monitor, detect, and prevent money laundering. The bank allegedly failed to file suspicious activity reports, had deficiencies in its risk assessment, remote deposit capture, and generally had weaknesses that compromised national bank security controls. The bank was the subject of a larger investigation that alleged funds were siphoned out of US jurisdiction to safe havens.

In January 2021, Capital One was fined $390 million by FINCEN for anti-money laundering control failure concerning a now-defunct small portfolio of check-cashing businesses that Capital One acquired around 2008 and sold in 2014. Capital One later admitted that it failed to file thousands of suspicious activity reports and lapsed on filing currency transaction reports on around 50,000 reportable cash transactions valued around $16 billion.

Alleged misleading interest rates on savings accounts

In July 2023, a lawsuit claimed that, since February 2013, the company unfairly began offering a savings account with higher yield but didn't tell legacy customers.

In January 2025, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Capital One for cheating savings account holders out of $2 billion by "deceptive, abusive and illegal" practices which obscured the difference between the high-interest "360 Performance Savings" accounts vs. low-interest "360 Savings" accounts; however, the following month, after Donald Trump became president of the United States, the suit was dropped.

The State of New York filed a similar lawsuit against Capital One in May 2025 on behalf of depositors promised "one of the country's highest interest rates" on their "360 Savings" accounts; however, they were only paid an annual interest rate of 0.30%; the higher rates were paid on the similarly-named "360 Performance Savings" accounts. The company agreed to a $425 million settlement, which was approved by a judge in April 2026.

Trump account closures

The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, into which Donald Trump had transferred his business assets in light of his presidencies, and 11 other plaintiffs sued Capital One in March 2025 for the closure of more than 300 years-old Trump-affiliated bank accounts in March 2021. The accounts were for a variety of Trump-branded businesses, including a golf course and a winery. The plaintiffs brought a case in Florida claiming unfair treatment and political motives following the January 6 attacks on the Capitol. However, there is no legal entitlement to a bank account in the USA, where such rules and regulations exist to protect the financial system. The bank gave the Trump companies months – extended several times – to move their money elsewhere, which they did, and "never publicized the termination decision nor its confidential internal process that brought about the closure". The case was dismissed by Judge Roy K. Altman in March 2026 on the grounds that the plaintiffs had ignored contractual provisions, which gave the bank the right to "close any account in our sole discretion at any time, for any or no reason and without notice to [the account holder]". The "without prejudice" ruling by Judge Altman, whom Trump had nominated in 2019, allowed the plaintiffs to refile.

An amended complaint was filed on July 17, 2026, adding a fraud claim over Capital One's silence about its justification. Large parts of the complaint, including a section titled "January 6, 2021: The Political Trigger," were placed under seal by court order. Capital One filed a second motion to dismiss on July 31, 2026, revealing for the first time that the closures followed "months of analysis and a careful review" by its anti-money laundering team of experts with "decades of law enforcement experience". Without accusing the plaintiffs of money laundering and without disclosing the review's findings, the bank asked the court to dismiss the case with prejudice to prevent another refiling. It separately asked the court to keep sealed parts of an exhibit which bore employee names, account numbers and unrelated pay details, citing the Bank Secrecy Act; the plaintiffs did not object to sealing the account numbers but contested other redactions.

Snopes confirmed that Capital One closed around 300 Trump accounts over money-laundering concerns, while noting the bank never disclosed proof of actual laundering. Capital One's filings put the number of account closures near 300, while the plaintiffs cited about 385. There were rumours circulating tying the closures to Trump's property sales to Russian buyers but Snopes found no evidence as to their veracity.