Saturday, October 24, 2026 · Issue No. 1 · 1 min readDownload PDF
Card charge-offs ease at Capital One as BNPL lenders sign new deals
Capital One's third-quarter card charge-offs fell to 3.98% from 4.63% a year ago as EPS reached $5.61, and Bread Financial beat consensus with adjusted EPS of $3.84 and improved loss guidance. Affirm won an exclusive, multi-year deal with Sam's Club, Klarna moved into small-business invoicing through FreshBooks, and Synchrony launched CareCredit Pay Later, a fixed-rate installment loan for healthcare.
$5.61
COF Q3 EPS
vs $4.83 a year ago
3.98%
COF card NCOs
from 4.63% a year ago
$3.84
BFH adj. EPS
vs ~$3.33 est.
~20,000
CareCredit Pay Later sites
live at launch
Card issuers
Capital One Q3
EPS of $5.61 (vs $4.83). Domestic card net charge-offs were 3.98% (from 4.63% a year ago), and purchase volume rose 11% to $250B. Discover network volume rose 25% to $190.9B, and Discover integration costs were $338M.
Synchrony
CareCredit Pay Later (Oct 21) is a one-time-use, fixed-APR installment loan for out-of-pocket care, live at ~20,000 locations and shown next to the revolving card. It will roll out network-wide. Context: SYF Q3 net charge-offs were 4.79%, against FY guidance of under 5.5%.
Bread Financial Q3
Bread Financial's adj. EPS of $3.84 beat ~$3.33 consensus, on revenue of $1.02B. It improved FY26 net loss guidance to 6.9-7.0% (from 7.0-7.1%).
Co-brand / private label
Program renewals
Bread Financial renewed its Sephora and Signet/Blue Nile card programs earlier in the week, the main private label moves of Oct 21-24.
BNPL & installments
Affirm + Sam's Club (Oct 22)
Exclusive, multi-year pay-over-time deal on eligible purchases of $500+. It goes live on SamsClub.com in the coming weeks, with in-club rollout planned for 2027.
Klarna + FreshBooks (Oct 21)
Klarna is now embedded in FreshBooks invoicing. Small businesses can offer pay in full, pay-in-4 or financing, with no setup.
CareCredit Pay Later
A card issuer's fixed-term installment product moving into healthcare, a vertical Cherry also targets.
Cash App Card
First Electronic Bank lends behind Afterpay on the Cash App Card, which Block expanded to all eligible cardholders in June 2026.
New entrants & fintech
Bank installments
Four of the five largest U.S. banks now offer card installment plans, after BofA added a fixed-fee 3-18 month plan in June 2026, putting banks in direct competition with BNPL lenders at checkout.
Tech & tools
Embedded finance
Klarna's FreshBooks integration shows pay-over-time moving into B2B software.
Regulatory radar
Pending bills
S.3623, the Credit Card Competition Act of 2026, and S.381, a proposed 10% APR cap, remain pending in the Senate.
Sources are linked in every issue. Confirm figures against the original filings before relying on them.