The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has filed a lawsuit against Capital One, accusing the banking giant of misleading customers and illegally withholding billions of dollars in interest payments through its handling of “360 Savings” accounts, The Associated Press reports.
The agency alleges that Capital One deliberately kept interest rates on these accounts artificially low while simultaneously offering a higher-yield option, “360 Performance Savings,” to which it failed to inform existing 360 Savings customers.
According to the CFPB complaint filed Tuesday, Capital One marketed its “360 Savings” accounts as offering competitive, high-interest rates. However, the agency claims that the bank froze the interest rate on these accounts at a low level for several years, even as national interest rates rose. Meanwhile, Capital One quietly launched “360 Performance Savings,” which offered significantly higher returns. The CFPB alleges that Capital One not only failed to notify existing 360 Savings customers of this better option but also actively concealed it, instructing employees not to proactively discuss it with customers and marketing the products similarly to obscure the differences.
The lawsuit alleges that Capital One held the 360 Savings interest rate at a meager 0.30% from December 2020 through at least August 2024, while the rate on 360 Performance Savings climbed from 0.40% in April 2022 to as high as 4.35% by the start of 2024. The discrepancy between the two was as large as a 14-fold difference in July 2024, according to the complaint, with 360 Performance Savings currently earning nearly 7.5 times higher interest.
Capital One responded to the lawsuit by strongly disagreeing with the CFPB’s allegations, stating it plans to “vigorously defend” itself in court. The bank also expressed disappointment in the CFPB’s “recent pattern of filing eleventh-hour lawsuits ahead of a change in administration,” referring to the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on January 20. Capital One maintains that all its 360 banking products “offer great rates” and have “always been available in just minutes to all new and existing customers.”
Despite the change in administration, some legal experts and analysts believe the case could continue.
