Banking | Finance 2024: RICHARD FAIRBANK

After earning an economics degree and an MBA from Stanford University over a decade, Fairbank landed at Virginia’s Signet Bank, where he co-created the business that became Capital One, the Fortune Global 500 credit card giant.

Fairbank became CEO in 1994 during Capital One’s initial public offering. In 2023, the bank reported $36.8 billion in 2023 revenue, a 7% increase over 2022. With $475.6 billion in assets, Capital One is the nation’s ninth largest bank.

In February, Capital One announced plans to buy Discover Financial Services for $35.3 billion in an all-stock deal expected to close in late 2024 or early 2025. However, the acquisition has been under regulatory scrutiny, and in July, Capital One committed to spend $265 billion over five years to lending, philanthropy and investment if the deal goes through. A few days later, two Capital One cardholders filed a class action lawsuit against the two companies, claiming the deal would violate antitrust law.

In May, Capital One and Walmart announced they had ended a partnership that had made Capital One the exclusive issuer of Walmart’s consumer credit cards. Capital One’s second quarter net income was $597 million, a drop from $1.3 billion in the first quarter, as the company added $826 million to its reserves for losses on loans related to the Walmart program termination.