American Express vs. Capital One: two card networks, a $51.8 billion Discover deal and a card write-off rate more than twice as high

American Express and Capital One both issue credit cards and both run their own payment network — Capital One since it bought Discover in May 2025. At the Oct 12, 2026 close, American Express was worth $210.4 billion and Capital One $123.4 billion. Both are almost flat over twelve months (−1.5% and −0.7%), and both are about 20% below their highs of the past year.

Revenue here is the figure both report net of interest expense — “total revenues net of interest expense” at American Express and “total net revenue” at Capital One — so it is not comparable with the revenue of a company outside finance.

Capital One’s Discover year

Discover merged into Capital One on May 18, 2025. The fair value of what Capital One paid was $51.8 billion, and Discover’s network became Capital One’s Global Payment Network, which handled $401.8 billion of volume in 2025. Most of the 36.6% revenue growth in 2025 came from adding Discover, not from the existing business.

Profit went the other way. Accounting rules required Capital One to set aside an initial $8.8 billion allowance for the Discover loans it bought, which pushed its 2025 provision for credit losses to $20.7 billion and left the second quarter of 2025 with a $4.3 billion net loss. Full-year net income was $2.45 billion. In the second quarter of 2026 it earned $3.0 billion, or $4.73 a share, and its founder and chief executive Richard Fairbank said that 14 months in, “integration is going well.” In April 2026 Capital One also completed the purchase of Brex, a business-payments software company, for about $2.56 billion in cash and 10.6 million shares.

Losses on card loans

Capital One writes off a larger share of its card loans. In 2025 its credit card segment charged off 5.09% of loans, against 2.3% for American Express across its card loans and receivables (2.0% counting principal only). Both companies also report U.S. card losses every month, and the gap has narrowed in 2026:

*American Express says a sale of previously written-off balances lowered its June rate by about 0.3 percentage point. The two measures are close but not identical: Capital One takes unpaid interest and fees out of revenue rather than counting them as losses.

Revenue and profit since 2017

• 2017: the U.S. tax law brought a $2.6 billion charge at American Express and $1.8 billion at Capital One.
• 2020: American Express revenue fell 17% as card spending dropped; Capital One built $5.0 billion of loan-loss allowances in the first half.
• 2021: both released reserves; Capital One’s provision turned negative and it earned a record $12.4 billion.
• 2025: the Discover allowance at Capital One.

Dividends and buybacks

American Express raised its quarterly dividend 16% in March 2026, to $0.95 a share; Capital One raised its to $0.80 from $0.60 in late 2025. Capital One has cut its dividend twice in the period: to $0.05 a quarter in 2009 and to $0.10 in the second half of 2020, under Federal Reserve limits, before paying a $0.60 special dividend in 2021. American Express returned $7.6 billion to shareholders in 2025, $5.3 billion of it in buybacks; its average diluted share count fell from about 1,003 million in 2015 to 696 million in 2025. Capital One’s rose to 541 million in 2025 because it paid for Discover in shares, and in October 2025 its board authorized up to $16 billion of buybacks.

$1,000 over 5, 10 and 20 years

Over 20 years neither beat the S&P 500. American Express was ahead of Capital One in 236 of the 240 months; Capital One led only from September to December 2008.

Funds and insiders

Eight of the 38 managers this site tracks held American Express at the end of June, and one of them dominates: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, with 151.6 million shares worth $51.3 billion, unchanged in the quarter. Fourteen held Capital One. Berkshire cut its Capital One stake by 58%, to 3.0 million shares, leaving Cliff Asness of AQR as the largest holder among them at $1.06 billion. Two Sigma multiplied its position about 19 times, Dan Loeb raised his by 489% and Steve Cohen and Ken Griffin by about half; Stephen Mandel sold out and Ray Dalio returned. These are June 30 positions: American Express is 7.9% lower since, Capital One 0.3% higher.

No insider bought shares of either company in the twelve months to October 12, 2026. American Express executives sold $63.0 million: $18.0 million through a pre-arranged 10b5-1 plan, all by chief marketing officer Elizabeth Rutledge, and $45.0 million without one, by ten executives; chief executive Stephen Squeri did not sell. Capital One executives sold $89.7 million, $87.7 million of it through 10b5-1 plans, including $46.2 million by Fairbank.

One more filing from American Express: on October 8, 2026 it consented to orders from the Federal Reserve and the OCC to resolve reviews of its financial crimes compliance program, and its bank agreed to pay a $350 million civil money penalty. The company said the orders do not impose an asset cap and do not change its 2026 guidance, which calls for revenue growth of about 10% and earnings of $17.30 to $17.90 a share.

The figures above come from the two companies’ filings and the 13F, Form 4 and Form 144 filings listed below. They describe what happened; they are not a forecast and not investment advice.