Editorial Board
Capital One’s Discover Deal Should Aid Competition
Regulators need to reject knee-jerk opposition to the deal and focus on the data.
Her mind’s made up.
Photographer: Ting Shen/Bloomberg
Just hours after Capital One Financial Corp. said it would buy Discover Financial Services, politicians such as Senator Elizabeth Warren insisted the deal must be blocked to protect consumers from being preyed on by what would become the US’s biggest credit card issuer. Congressional Democrats ratcheted up the opposition in a letter to regulators this week.
Such a consequential merger surely deserves scrutiny. But on balance, it’s likely to inject much-needed competition into the card market. Dismissing it out of hand serves only politics — not consumers or companies.