Ally, Synchrony, Discover, Sallie Mae and Navient are the other lenders the ratings firm downgraded, citing the impact that the coronavirus crisis is having on their revenues and profits.
Discover and Sallie Mae are the latest to report a surge in forbearance requests as households struggle with job loss and other hardships resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.
Discover is the latest card lender to say it's reining in credit lines as the coronavirus pandemic leaves millions of Americans jobless and struggling to keep up on loans.
Discover Financial Services is being investigated by the agency over student loan-servicing practices and its compliance with a 2015 consent order involving the business.
The credit card lender has seen problem loans spike since it introduced a feature that lets at-risk customers restructure loans through its online and mobile channels.
Ally and other direct banks continue to report strong deposit growth even as they slash the rates they pay to depositors. The trend suggests that the online-only approach has more staying power than its detractors believed.
It has already been modifying more problem loans and investing in efforts to recover charged-off loans, and now the credit card lender is ready to tighten underwriting in case the economy weakens.
The credit card issuer has hired John T. Greene, a former pharmaceutical industry executive, to succeed Mark Graf, who announced his retirement over the summer.
The CEOs of Sallie Mae and Discover Financial Services were largely dismissive this week of the threat posed by the two Democratic presidential candidates, though their optimism seemed to be rooted in an assumption that the more sweeping proposals will never become law.
