Washington, D.C. — Following testimony at today’s joint public hearing on Capital One’s $35.3 billion acquisition of Discover Financial Services with the Federal Reserve Board and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“Capital One’s claim that its acquisition of Discover is ‘pro-competitive’ defies both reality and legality,” said Ashley Nowicki, Policy Analyst at the American Economic Liberties Project, who testified at the joint hearing. “In creating the sixth largest bank and single largest credit card issuer, this merger would only serve to exacerbate existing banking concentration and result in higher swipe fees, increased interest rates, and restricted access to credit for consumers and small business owners that need it most. According to the OCC’s own guidelines, this merger is 13 times larger than what the regulator says is ‘reasonable,’ which is why we urge the Federal Reserve Board and OCC to break its history of rubber stamping harmful mergers in the banking industry and block this illegal deal.”

Read Economic Liberties’ full public testimony here. 

Read “Capital One-Discover: A Competition Policy and Regulatory Deep Dive” to learn more. 

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.