Capital One Financial (COF)

Fluctuations In Market Interest Rates Or The Capital Markets Could Adversely Affect Our Revenue And Expense, The Value Of Assets And Obligations, Our Cost Of Capital Or Our Liquidity

Like other financial institutions, our business may be sensitive to market interest rate movement and the performance of the financial markets. Changes in interest rates or in valuations in the debt or equity markets could directly impact us. First, we borrow money from other institutions and depositors, which we use to make loans to customers and invest in debt securities and other earning assets.

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We earn interest on these loans and assets and pay interest on the money we borrow from institutions and depositors. Fluctuations in interest rates, including changes in the relationship between short term rates and long term rates and in the relationship between our funding basis rate and our lending basis rate, may have negative impacts on our net interest income and therefore our earnings. In addition, interest rate fluctuations and competitor responses to those changes may affect the rate of customer pre-payments for auto and other term loans and may affect the balances customers carry on their credit cards. These changes can reduce the overall yield on our earning asset portfolio. Changes in interest rates and competitor responses to these changes may also impact customer decisions to maintain balances in the deposit accounts they have with us. These changes may require us to replace withdrawn balances with higher cost alternative sources of funding. In addition, changes in valuations in the debt and equity markets could have a negative impact on the assets we hold in our investment portfolio. Finally, such market changes could also have a negative impact on the valuation of assets for which we provide servicing.

We assess our interest rate risk by estimating the effect on our earnings under various scenarios that differ based on assumptions about the direction and the magnitude of interest rate changes. We take risk mitigation actions based on those assessments. We face the risk that changes in interest rates could reduce our net interest income and our earnings in material amounts, especially if actual conditions turn out to be materially different than those we assumed.

See Item 7 “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Interest Rate Risk Management” for additional information.