So we’re continuing to invest in — also in building the properties and experiences to drive heavy spender growth at the top of the market. So these investments include our travel portal. Access to exclusive properties and experiences, airport lounges and Capital One shopping. And our sustained investment at the top of the market has helped drive momentum in — overall in our spender business, but we’ve grown even faster with the heaviest of spenders and we very much like this business. In addition to the obvious spend growth we’re enjoying, it generates strong revenues, has very low losses, low attrition and lifts the entire brand of the company. The final factor driving our marketing levels is our investment in continuing to build our National Bank.
And of course, as we have a smaller branch footprint, our growth is powered by modern technology compelling digital experience, a cafe presence in heavily traveled locations across the nation and, of course, a sustained investment in marketing. So these are the really compelling opportunities that are driving our marketing levels and we continue to see great traction pretty much across the boards, and we continue to lean into these opportunities and it’s an important part of the creation of long-term value for our shareholders.
Jeff Norris: Next question please.
Operator: Our next question comes from Rick Shane with JPMorgan. Your line is open.
Richard Shane: Thanks for taking my questions this afternoon. I’d just like to talk a little bit about the depository franchise. Obviously, there’s been very strong growth this year in the consumer banking franchise, particularly on the deposit side. Can you just talk a little bit about the competitive landscape — you started, Rich, you talked a little bit about the network, the cafes, the less concentrated branch approach. But can you describe what you’re seeing sort of broadly in the market where you think you’re gaining share?
Richard Fairbank: Well, one of the — thank you, Rick. One of the core strategic approaches of Capital One, it really defines the founding idea of the company and pretty much all the choices we’ve made sense is to look at the marketplace and the Tsunami forces that are driving such change in the marketplace and really try to discern with all the noise in these marketplaces. Where is it that — where is winning going to be? What’s the future of these things? And almost always, it’s a question of how technology is driving change. And so in retail banking, we, of course, entered banking way back in the mid-OOs (ph) driven most importantly by a desire to transform the balance sheet of our company to get away from capital market reliance and get not just a deposit driven balance sheet, but an insured deposit-driven balance sheet, hence, the quest for a consumer deposit franchise.
Now along the way, as a very important part of our strategy as well. We look forward to trying to get at the forefront of where the world was going to go over time with respect to retail banking. From a heavy reliance on branches and by the way, I want to say at the outset, I think branches will be an important thing in the — in banking for as far out as we can see. But you just can’t help but see the evolution from the branch on the corner to the branch in your hand and really over time — sorry, to the bank in your hand, to over time, the bank in your life that’s very digitally interactive and both reactively and proactively being there where a consumer needs it on a real-time customized basis. So that’s where we have — that’s the vision that we’ve been working backwards from.
So in that journey, the first step, of course, was building a national savings business that was absolutely central to our balance sheet strategy for the company. But beyond that, we have worked very much to build a not just a national savings business, but a national full service bank. And to do that, it’s not just a matter of sort of offering checking accounts, but I think Capital One was in a unique position, having retail banks in — branches in about 20% of the nation and have a lot of experience with retail banking. Our view was if we’re going to win in National Banking, we actually have to digitize the entire customer experience and just about everything that you can get in a branch to be able to — for customers to get that on a digital basis.
So what we’ve done over the years is build a full service digital, national bank. And we — then as we have built this, we have then leveraged the big customer base we have, the national brand that we have and really added to our marketing and everywhere in our strategy, the build-out of this national bank, and we’re getting a lot of traction, nice growth and a lot of traction on the brand side as consumers realize that Capital One, even though the branches across the nation really is a full service National Bank. So that’s been our strategy for years. We continue to — it’s an important thing that we lean into from a marketing point of view. But basically, our quest is to build — continue to build a national bank without getting there by virtue of just lots and lots of acquisitions of branch-based banks.
Thanks.
Richard Shane: Thank you, Rich.
A – Jeff Norris: Next question please.
Operator: Our next question comes from Don Fandetti with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Donald Fandetti: Yes. Rich, I was wondering, given your good trends in auto delinquency, are you sort of inclined to be leaning a little harder into auto lending or do you need to see something before making that decision?
Richard Fairbank: Don, thank you for your question. It’s funny. We have zig (ph) while others is zag for so long — as long as I can remember in the auto business. And our strategy isn’t just as zig, while other is zag, it’s always to look at this marketplace and really objectively see where the opportunities are. This is a more volatile business in terms of our growth strategies, then the credit card business is because of the role that a dealer plays in the business in a sense, holding auctions at the dealership such that — we — our growth strategies are particularly sensitive to the credit and underwriting choices that our competitors make because it’s sort of amplified in this auction-based environment with dealers really quite a contrast from the credit card business — to the credit card business where certainly the competitive choices matter.
But it’s really still a one-on-one business with our customers and prospective customers. That’s why you see so much more stability in sort of the marketing and the marketing sort of and the and leaning into the growth that you see on the card side. So as when you think about the last few years. So we’ve certainly had in the last five or six years, tremendous growth and traction in the auto business. And we — our strategy was so powered by our technology that we’ve invested in the business, the data, the underwriting capabilities and the very deep relationships that we’ve been building with dealers. Over the last couple of years, we were concerned at what was happening with margins as they were pressured by interest rate increases in 2022 and early 2023, some competitors were slow to adjust their pricing.
Now more recently, industry lending margins have largely normalized as interest rates have stabilized and many players, including late movers have continued to increase pricing. The other thing, of course, was watching very closely the credit side of the business. And we — just as we did in the card business, probably actually more proactively and more significantly in auto, we trimmed back around the edges in anticipation of certain worsening and with concerns about score drift in, with respect to the data [indiscernible] from consumers. So that has — and you’ve seen the data that where Capital One has pulled back quite a bit. Our outstandings have been shrinking a little bit. You also have seen the striking credit performance we’ve had and the stability now that is at least two quarters long in terms of what we’re seeing on various credit metrics.
