Capital One Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company founded on July 21, , and specializing in credit cards , auto loans , banking, and savings accounts , headquartered in McLean, Virginia with operations primarily in the United States. The company's three divisions are credit cards, consumer banking and commercial banking. Richard Fairbank and Nigel Morris developed the idea of using information technology and statistical analysis to create customized credit card offers for different segments of customers in At the time, most credit cards would offer the same terms—interest rate and annual fee—to almost everyone, regardless of the financial risks of each customer.
They consulted with Oracle Corporation on how to compile the demographics and other statistics that would help them sort out and identify those customer market segments. They then started soliciting banks regarding using their approach, indicating that they anticipated large profits based on the large numbers of customers they projected to enroll. At that time, Capital One was a monoline bank, meaning that all of its revenue came from a single product, in this case, credit cards.
In , 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. At the time, it was losing customers to competitors who offered higher ceilings on loan balances and no-annual-fee accounts. The company came up with co-branded, secured, and joint account credit cards.
This meant that the company could now retain and lend out deposits on secured cards and even issue automobile installment loans. This gave the company access to a large international market for its credit cards. In , Capital One was looking to expand beyond credit cards. CEO Richard Fairbank announced moves to use Capital One's experience with collecting consumer data to offer loans, insurance, and phone service.
In Capital One became the first monoline credit card issuer to buy a bank, as it entered into retail banking by acquiring Hibernia National Bank. The similarity of Credit One Bank's logo and the Capital One logo caused confusion among consumers, with many not realizing they were separate companies.
