Capital One Is Buying Discover Financial
wsj.com
wsj.com
* Pending the feds allowing this to go through
There has been enough antitrust scrutiny in recent years where I am very interested to see how far this goes. There's a very real chance the sale won't complete and 6 months from now nothing will have changed.
Recall that the Trump administration tried (and ultimately failed) to block the AT&T and Time Warner merger. And then there was the antitrust complaint against Google.
Talk about a Pyrrhic victory. AT&T really, really wishes it had lost that one.
(for reference I'm a libertarian, but let's call a spade a spade)
It’s one of the largest US Open-Loop Issuers, buying their own network (Closed Loop).
Cap1 will now be able to cut out Visa/Mastercard.
Cap1 will now be like Amex.
I also can’t think about the Discover card without hearing Peter Griffin[1] in the back of my head.
So your worry is overblown unless you travel internationally frequently.
I looked at their international site (linked from the one you posted). It says the place I’m going in a month has high acceptance, but other countries right next door do not (within the EU). There are also a lot of notes to just try it and see if it works. That implies I should have a backup and I won’t be able to tell before trying to buy something based on stickers at the register. If that’s the case, I’d rather make the backup my main card, so I don’t need to do that dance and get rejected.
In India it seemed like Mastercard was the most widely accepted, so even Visa wasn’t everywhere I want to be. But I think Visa, with a Mastercard backup, is probably the best bet for most of the world. Discover feels unnecessary. I’m not looking to have a ton of credit cards.
Personally I feel everyone should have 3 cards, a Visa a Mastercard, and one other (any network). And make sure they are from at least two different banks, just in case a fraud alert on one card, shuts down the sibling card from the same bank.
For best safety keep the 3rd card at home, and rotate it every month or two (don't go over 3 months though) with one of the other cards - that way if your wallet is stolen you still have something available at home.
You should also consider keeping a payment method in your car in case your wallet gets lost/stolen.
Sure, your average coffee shop with a square stand that pays an inflated flat percentage rate does not care what card you tap, but any small business that that is using a payment processor that provides interchange pricing or qualified pricing is directly affected by experiencing double the cost to process your average discover or American Express card, and many will happily tell you they much prefer you to pay with cash, failing that debit, then Visa or MasterCard credit, due to the cost of processing.
This merger also affects other oddball cards like JCB and Diners Club Card that ride on Discover's rails.
One other aspect of this is Visa and MasterCard have been getting crazy with the interchange fees on their most premium credit card types, making American Express and Discover's standard rates look reasonable in comparison: https://www.creditdonkey.com/interchange-rates.html#visa
This has never happened to me. There have been places that don’t take Amex outright (not many these days) but none have ever said they prefer anything else, from huge big box stores to small farmers market merchants.
Where have you seen this?
lost me there
evolve or die
I would prefer if Apple switched to Visa since my other visa cards gradually got converted to the less useful Mastercard (supported in the USA, but fewer other places).
Discover acceptance is near-universal (at least in the US) as of the late 2000s/early 2010s. After they won a major lawsuit against Visa/Mastercard in the early 2000s for their exclusionary policies, acceptance rolled out widely and the memes about the card are mostly a thing of the past.
I've used a Discover card for 99.9% of purchases with extensive travel across the US for the past 15 years or so. Very occasionally a place won't accept it, but it's become a rather surprising thing to encounter.
And it wouldn't be the first time Apple has integrated with Discover -- for example Apple Cash in Wallet used to use Discover prior to 2022 or so.
I've been buying Apple goods in HK with my Apple card for years.
[0] https://wallethub.com/answers/cc/is-visa-or-mastercard-bette...