The Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced Friday that they had approved the merger of Capital One and Discover. This cleared the final major hurdles to a tie-up of the two banks.
The regulators have said that they have conducted a “full review” of 2024’s application by the banks. They approved a deal that will create the largest U.S. issuer of credit cards by balance and one of America’s largest banks in terms of assets. Capital One will also gain control over Discover’s card payment network.
The regulator stated that the OCC approval is conditional on corrective action plans to address “root causes” for any enforcement actions still outstanding against Discover Bank.
In a statement, the Fed announced that it had entered into a consent agreement with Discover and assessed a fine of $100,000,000 for charging certain fees in excess from 2007-2023.
According to reports, the Justice Department had previously determined that there were no competition concerns strong enough to block this deal.
Financial executives saw the deal as an indicator of how quickly Trump’s administration would approve mergers within a sector that was ripe for consolidation for a long time.
