Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing, bonus story of the week.

Today on Forbes, why Capital One's $5 billion acquisition of fintech Brex could be another

masterstroke for billionaire Richard Fairbank.

Amid the flurry of news over the last week surrounding President Trump's speech at the

World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and also the tragic events over the last week surrounding President Trump's speech at the World Economic Forum in

Davos, Switzerland, and also the tragic events over the weekend in Minneapolis,

an announcement by the nation's third largest credit card issuer, the $661 billion in assets

Capital One, that it was spending $5.2 billion on a fintech named Brex seemed to garner little attention.

However, Capital One's billionaire CEO and co-founder Richard Fairbank is renowned as one of banking's

smartest strategists, and this latest acquisition, which is priced well below Brex's

$12 billion valuation from 2022, could prove to be a game-changer in two

different areas. Founded in 2017, Brex offers corporate credit cards, employee spend management

tools, and business bank accounts to 35,000 customers, many of them technology firms like

Coinbase and DoorDash, as well as startups that

often were rejected by American Express. The acquisition, made half in cash and half in stock,

gives Capital One a giant inroad into technology companies, from which it can expand its

credit card balances. Though not yet profitable, Brex is growing like gangbusters and has reported

a gross revenue run rate of $700 million per year. On the company's fourth-quarter earnings

call last week, Faribank said Brex will help the credit card giant expand further into business payments

and small business banking. He noted the payment challenges

facing businesses, including collecting invoices, deciding how to pay, managing approvals,

and tracking workers' spending. He said, quote, in 2017, Brex invented the integrated

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