Capital One Financial Corp. NYSE: COF is a McLean, Fairfax County, Virginia-based bank holding company specializing in credit cards, home loans, auto loans, and savings products. The firm was a pioneer of the mass marketing of credit cards in the early 1990s and is now the largest customer of the United States Postal Service.

On March 12th, 2006, Capital One acquired Melville, New York-based North Fork Bank.

Diversity

Capital One received a 100% rating on the Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign starting in 2003, the second year of the report.

Controversy

Capital One has chosen to report balances instead of limits on credit reports. They do not give credit limit increases at consumers requests, they only give them on proactive reviews of accounts. Capital One is one of the most conservative credit companies on credit limit increases. Usually the reason for not giving a credit limit increase is that they do not want to put the consumer more into debt than what they might already be in.

As well, Capital One disallows the usage of their Credit Cards for deposits into online gaming sites.

Capital One does not hire employees with excessive negative history in their credit reports (any accounts 120 days late or more).

Capital One in the community

The European headquarters of Capital One, based in Nottingham, England currently sponsors Nottingham Forest, an English football team. Next season, they will also be the sponsors of Premiership Football Club Sheffield United.