Ugh. Moving back to the US after a decade abroad, I had to get credit cards to rebuild my nonexistent credit.
Discover and Capital One both had deposit-based credit cards for credit building, so that's what I started with.
Discover's customer support system was polished and felt like a small company. I'd always speak to a polite native English speaker. When I gave authentication information to the pre-call robot (like card number, name, exp date), the customer service rep could pull up that info instead of asking me to repeat it.
Also, my Discover card kept me up to date with it's upgrade status, eventually going from a $150 credit line to a $1500 automatically and predictably. And again going to a $2500 credit line without my intervention; just from making steady payments.
Capital One's customer support system was awful. It's outsourced and I can't always understand the rep who sometimes gets mad at me for it. Any authentication information I give to the pre-call robot, the rep will ask me for again. Even the dang credit card number that is hard to give to a human. "No, that's Two as in Todd, Four as in Forage..."
And the Capital One credit card I got 3 years ago is still at $150 credit line. Apparently I have to pester them to get the credit line upgrade that the card promises, but why bother with a crappy company when I have a $2500 Discover card and good enough credit to have gotten better cards since then?
But I guess it's no surprise that the worse company to work with is swallowing the pleasant company. Just imagine all that money Discover was wasting by being a pleasant experience, like having credit lines that upgrade automatically and a customer support rep that speaks the same language.
Opposite experience. I love Capital Ones interface, and their customer support is good. Usually I'll get a customer support agent state-side.
> the rep who sometimes gets mad at me for it
That's an ...unusual customer support experience.
> my Discover card kept me up to date with it's upgrade status
My capital one card does the same, it periodically requests updates to my income after which my credit line increases.
The only friction I experience with Capital One is the lack of physical presences. There are none in my entire region. That being said it is a great bank that never - and I mean never - has played games with auto-pay suddenly and silently failing at the due date (and incurring a late fee of course oopsies), or other annoyances I've had with Discover.
Agreed – Discover has great customer support. Their tech stack, however, seems terrible. They had a very messy migration of their Zelle integration and in the process seem to have broken things for many of their checking customers. Personally, I could neither use it, nor enroll my email address or phone number previously enrolled at Discover with any another bank for several months!
Capital One seems to have a much more modern tech stack: Their app is much more usable than most other banks' I've tried, and they're the only US credit card issuer I know of that actually supports 3DS without any ugly hacks that usually mean trouble when shopping at a foreign merchant that requires it. They also support a very neat authentication feature – tapping my credit or debit card on my phone – which I haven't seen with any other bank yet.
Let's see which tech stack and which customer support organization survives the merger, respectively...
Underappreciated reason, when system observations are made:
- Discover was founded in 1985 (credit card only, by Sears) and began banking in 2006(?)
- Capital One was founded in 1994 (credit card only) and began banking in 2005
Legacy systems suck, especially if the parent company has underinvested in IT modernization for decades. Delta? Southwest? And younger companies don't have to deal with the pre-digital legacy pain of < ~1990 founded companies.
Counterpoint: Amex has been issuing charge cards since the 50s, and their tech seems leagues ahead of Discover, for both charge/credit cards and checking accounts (based on my first impressions for the latter; I haven't really used their checking account as my main account).
Yes, Amex has the best app out of all banking I've used thus far. It's very fast, the UI is easy to understand, and you can do what you need to do quickly and painlessly.
The under the surface portion of the legacy system iceberg is how agile (and well-defined at interface points) backend systems are.
Most of the time, the reason a front end app can't do X is that there's no way to use/modify the internal core systems to do that.
So front end shiny is a poor litmus for how well or poorly a company's internal systems are.
Agility is probably a better proxy -- given a new business need / requirement (e.g. ACA in US health insurance), how quickly can a company execute on it?
> Agility is probably a better proxy -- given a new business need / requirement (e.g. ACA in US health insurance), how quickly can a company execute on it?
Yes, probably, but I think performance is pretty good sign too. Old legacy systems are often complex so new functionality is always bolted on-top, and not baked-in. Making architectural changes like that is risky.
And, third-party integrations are going to be preferred. So over time the application becomes incredibly slow. There's layers and layers of cruft and then calls to third parties around every corner.
> Let's see which tech stack and which customer support organization survives the merger, respectively...
I have no inside experience of either company, but I have been through a lot of large financial industry mergers and I know what's public about this one.
I'd bet heavily that it'll be some of both, but tech especially will be Capital One. Because it's larger, because it's the acquirer, and maybe above all because it's newer - a younger company with a younger tech stack that's known to be entirely cloud based.
> they're the only US credit card issuer I know of that actually supports 3DS without any ugly hacks that usually mean trouble when shopping at a foreign merchant that requires it
Is there a good wiki or database that tracks which issuers have good 3DS support?
From what I remember last time I checked, Discover supported OFX Direct Connect while Capital One did not. So there can be downsides to a "modern" tech stack.
One note on raising credit limits- Capital One will raise your limit just like every other lender — they want you to have as much debt as they think you can make interest payments on.
Probably once you had the increased available credit from Disco their models said giving you more was too much risk.
My experience with Capital One is very positive. Their support is always solid and wait times are reasonable. The app and the website work well, though they have introduced some dark patterns in recent years. They periodically increase my credit line without prompting.
A few years ago I decided to build some credit with a Discover secured card. And when I researched Discover, I learned about why their acceptance was lower (higher merchant transaction fees) and their overseas acceptance was comparatively lower, and that they didn't have a single brick-and-mortar branch, and so with masochistic glee, I signed up!
Discover's credit card was a great idea, I feel. The cashback rewards I can earn at restaurants are great. The acceptance hasn't really been a barrier to spending, but unfortunately I cling to my Visa-based debit, "just in case" there are merchants who can't accept Discover -- what else would I do?
The lack of branches? No big deal, considering anything important can be done through their app or website. Which are very polished, attractive and functional. They don't even 2FA me from my Chromebook.
Their customer service is amazing. I mean, call in the middle of the night to a fluent English speaker who tells you where they're located?! They are so polite and patient! Best ever experience, really. In fact, my credit union's reps are really good too. It's a small blessing.
I did not need to open a Discover Checking account, and I can't remember why I did it, but I did. The Discover Bank debit card is different than their credit cards, and therefore acceptance may be even lower. I still get cashback rewards on it.
My finances are uncomplicated. I don't much enjoy dealing separately with two banks. I don't really need to. Except my credit union has no credit card to offer me, and Discover has no Visa to offer me. So I get along. We'll see how the Capital One thing goes.
Discover and Capital One both had deposit-based credit cards for credit building, so that's what I started with.
Discover's customer support system was polished and felt like a small company. I'd always speak to a polite native English speaker. When I gave authentication information to the pre-call robot (like card number, name, exp date), the customer service rep could pull up that info instead of asking me to repeat it.
Also, my Discover card kept me up to date with it's upgrade status, eventually going from a $150 credit line to a $1500 automatically and predictably. And again going to a $2500 credit line without my intervention; just from making steady payments.
Capital One's customer support system was awful. It's outsourced and I can't always understand the rep who sometimes gets mad at me for it. Any authentication information I give to the pre-call robot, the rep will ask me for again. Even the dang credit card number that is hard to give to a human. "No, that's Two as in Todd, Four as in Forage..."
And the Capital One credit card I got 3 years ago is still at $150 credit line. Apparently I have to pester them to get the credit line upgrade that the card promises, but why bother with a crappy company when I have a $2500 Discover card and good enough credit to have gotten better cards since then?
But I guess it's no surprise that the worse company to work with is swallowing the pleasant company. Just imagine all that money Discover was wasting by being a pleasant experience, like having credit lines that upgrade automatically and a customer support rep that speaks the same language.