The news: Capital One will acquire the business banking and corporate finance fintech Brex in a cash and stock deal worth $5.15 billion, the bank announced with its Q4 2025 earnings. 

Capital One will use Brex’s card issuing, expense management, and payments capabilities to expand its commercial payments offerings. The acquisition is expected to close in mid-2026.

What else we learned in Capital One’s earnings: Excluding Discover, domestic card purchase volume grew 6.2% YoY. (Including Discover, volume surged 39%.) And 30-day delinquencies sank YoY to 3.99%. 

CEO Richard Fairbank said during the company’s call that Capital One is planning to increase Discover’s international acceptance where Americans travel the most, and that it’s gradually working to widen global acceptance. 

Fairbank said Brex’s acquisition would not impact Discover’s integration or expected synergies. He said Brex would help make broader payments capabilities a core part of Capital One’s focus. 

Zoom out: Capital One stands to inherit Brex’s enviable corporate client list, which includes big gets like TikTok, Intel, Anthropic, Toast, DoorDash, and Robinhood—in addition to Brex’s recent EU banking corporate customers. 

With the ability to issue corporate cards both stateside and across the pond, Capital One can rapidly scale out its corporate card, business banking, and billing services to a raft of new clients. 

Implications for payment providers: Capital One has now committed more than $40 billion in acquiring companies across the payment sector. 

Brex is a much smaller acquisition to absorb, but it points to Capital One’s broader ambitions in payments technology, deeper relationships with corporate customers, and a potential play to grow its loan book as a new sponsor bank for Brex’s card programs.