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Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

reuters.com

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Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#61

Post by kaashif »

RHSeeger wrote: post #46
toomuchtodo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Colorado’s HB1229 became law, and several other states have pending consumer lending legislation capping rates at 25%. You can’t fix humans (especially when they’re forced to exist in this dystopian economic system), but you can reduce the exploitation with legislation. Even adults need protection, depending on circumstances, and their status as an adult isn’t a free pass to harm. But heh, that’s just the law. We can…

> Even adults need protection, depending on circumstances I think the argument is that it's not protection. If someone won't lend to you at 25% (but they would at 27%), then you can't borrow. Is it protection to just prevent those people from borrowing at all?

I think I'm on your side because it's possible for anyone to understand how interest works and make these judgements themselves.

But a lot of people just straight up don't understand interest (despite it being within their capabilities) and e.g. make minimum payments on their loans and complain when the balance goes up. A particularly egregious case (because the people in question are educated) is when people make minimum payments on student loans and don't seem to understand why the balance is increasing.

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#62

Post by silisili »

BadHumans wrote: post #6

I've always heard Discover was a good company to work for and they had the best customer support. Capital One is the opposite of both of those things so I hope the government steps in here.

C1 has a huge base in NoVa, and everyone I've known to work there seem to enjoy it.

As a customer though you're right, Discover is leaps and bounds better than Capital One. Walmart of all people is suing them for their terrible customer service, and that speaks volumes. I will cancel my Discover cards if this goes through.

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#63

Post by [deleted] »

RHSeeger wrote: post #46
toomuchtodo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Colorado’s HB1229 became law, and several other states have pending consumer lending legislation capping rates at 25%. You can’t fix humans (especially when they’re forced to exist in this dystopian economic system), but you can reduce the exploitation with legislation. Even adults need protection, depending on circumstances, and their status as an adult isn’t a free pass to harm. But heh, that’s just the law. We can…

> Even adults need protection, depending on circumstances I think the argument is that it's not protection. If someone won't lend to you at 25% (but they would at 27%), then you can't borrow. Is it protection to just prevent those people from borrowing at all?

[deleted]

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#64

Post by jltsiren »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #40
przemub wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, no. It's more than enough for them to operate on. The only downside from the American point of view is that banks very rarely offer cashback, points, etc.

> In Europe, credit card processing fees are generally lower compared to other regions, partly due to regulatory caps on interchange fees. For consumer debit and credit cards issued within the European Economic Area (EEA), the interchange fees are capped at 0.2% and 0.3% of the transaction value, respectively. However, total processing costs for merchants can be higher once all fees are included, often ranging from 1…

In addition to the interchange fee, the payment processors and the banks involved in the transaction charge their own fees. When I last checked it in Finland a few years ago, the list price from a traditional payment processor with a monthly fee was a little under 1%, assuming that the card was a European consumer credit card. Business cards and foreign cards could have higher fees, up to around 1.5%. Non-traditional payment processors without a monthly fee charged a bit under 2% for every transaction, regardless of the card.

Also, regulatory caps are not the real reason for lower fees. In some European countries, banks were traditionally focused on efficiency. Because merchants were used to cheap payment methods, credit cards didn't become widely accepted until the fees got low enough. Then the EU and the common market happened. The efficient banks with low fees realized they could gain market share in other countries by offering cheaper payment services. Visa and MasterCard didn't like that and tried to ban the practice. Then the EU didn't like that and eventually ended up imposing a cap on interchange fees.

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#65

Post by shiroiushi »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #25
jsyang00 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

basically deal goes thru is p(republican admin takes over) + p(win in court) + p(settlement deal of some sort).

Trump won in 2016, then lost in 2020 because he lost XYZ groups of voters. All of the people who didn't vote for Trump in 2020, why would they flip from Democrat to Republican and vote for him in 2024?

Trump got more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016, IIRC. While some people most likely did flip to Biden in 2020, there were also many, many people who voted 3rd-party in 2016 who didn't in 2020, and I think there was also higher voter turnout.

The danger, as usual for Democrats, isn't people flipping to Trump, it's people not bothering to vote (or giving it to another party like the Greens) because they don't like the Dems' candidate. For the most part, Hillary didn't lose in 2016 because people voted for Trump instead of her; she lost because voters who normally would have voted (D) either stayed at home or voted for a protest party. Biden didn't have so much of a problem this way, for various reasons (voters liked him better to begin with, and they had just lived through the horrors of 4 years of a Trump presidency).

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#66

Post by bogomipz »

BadHumans wrote: post #6

I've always heard Discover was a good company to work for and they had the best customer support. Capital One is the opposite of both of those things so I hope the government steps in here.

Is Capital one just really bad customer service or do they other questionable things like add charges and fees that are not legitimate? I was interested in them since the seem to be the only provider offers virtual credit cards for security but if they are that bad I will consider them.

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#67

Post by WirelessGigabit »

NoPedantsThanks wrote: post #55
op00to wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amex treats me far better than Discover.

Oh yeah, AmEx, the company that detects fraud on your account, cancels it, and then DOESN'T NOTIFY YOU. So you start getting notifications from vendors that they canceled your orders right before Christmas, because of trouble with your card. When you call AmEx and ask why the fuck you weren't notified of fraud on your account, they say (and I quote): "Oh we don't do that. We wait for the customer to get in touch with…

Same issue with Chase.

At least Bank of America sends me a text and a popup.

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#68

Post by TheCaptain4815 »

I hope the government regulations don’t just end at stopping the merger, but also disallowing these financial institutes from banning users for speech they deem harmful. Actual illegal use, sure, but im not sure how or why it’s legal for them to ban and remove banking abilities from someone for their political views no matter how “abhorrent”.

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#69

Post by [deleted] »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #25
jsyang00 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

basically deal goes thru is p(republican admin takes over) + p(win in court) + p(settlement deal of some sort).

Trump won in 2016, then lost in 2020 because he lost XYZ groups of voters. All of the people who didn't vote for Trump in 2020, why would they flip from Democrat to Republican and vote for him in 2024?

[deleted]

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#70

Post by xordon »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #9
lgleason wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can hope. The novus network attempts to provide a semblance of competition to AMEX, Visa and Mastercard in the US.

Do North American consumers/merchants pay less in processing fees overall than European/Asian counterparts or is it roughly 1-3% all over the world?

The fees are significantly lower in Europe, the rewards/kick backs given to card holders are also less.
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