UPDATE: This story includes quotes from Synchrony’s earnings call and an analyst’s commentary.
In an economy plagued by uncertainty, Synchrony Financial feels sure about one thing: The profit-draining cap on credit card late fees is gone for good.
In 2024, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced a strict limit on the fees — something that could have badly hurt Synchrony, a major issuer of co-branded credit cards. But after a year of court battles and changing leadership in Washington, a federal judge has scrapped the rule, and Synchrony’s leaders aren’t worried about its return.
“I think we feel pretty comfortable that the rule has been vacated, and we don’t expect it to come back in a similar form any time in the near future,” Synchrony CEO Brian Doubles said during an earnings call on Tuesday.
At the same time, the company doesn’t plan to walk back any of the changes it made to compensate for revenue it would have lost under the regulation. In April 2024, a month after the rule was announced, Synchrony added new fees and raised interest rates on its credit cards in an effort to increase revenue in other areas.
Doubles sees no reason to undo any of that.
“We don’t currently have plans to roll anything back in terms of the changes that we made,” the CEO said.
Synchrony, a financial services company based in Stamford, Connecticut, is the nation’s largest issuer of private label credit cards. The company co-brands cards with retailers and other businesses across the country, including Amazon, Google, JCPenney, Walgreens and many others.
In March 2024, when Joe Biden was still president, the CFPB introduced the
But the rule never took effect. Trade groups representing banks and other businesses sued to block it from being implemented, and in May 2024 they won a temporary injunction from a federal judge in Texas. Almost a year of court battles later, the CFPB, under new leadership appointed by President Donald Trump,
With that obstacle removed, a major source of income for Synchrony has been restored — and the revenue adjustments the company made are still in place.
If changes are warranted to any of its many credit cards as a result of the late fee rule’s demise, Doubles said, the company will discuss them thoroughly with its partners. And he emphasized that many options are on the table.
“Any kind of change that we’re going to make could come in a variety of forms,” Doubles said. “So that could be adding value to the card and giving value back to the consumer through promotions and offers and stuff like that. It doesn’t have to just be a price rollback necessarily.”
In the first quarter of 2025, Synchrony’s earnings took a hit as lower purchase volume and reduced loan receivables hurt first-quarter results, but the credit card issuer still beat Wall Street’s expectations.
Earnings per share were $1.89, surpassing estimates of $1.72, per S&P. Net income for the quarter was $757 million, beating analysts’ expectation of $667.2 million — but marking a nearly 42% drop from the same period last year. Excluding the $802 million impact of the
Revenue in the first three months of 2025 totaled $3.72 billion, in line with analysts’ average estimate, according to S&P.
“Overall, this was a stable quarter with expected seasonal trends and better credit as drivers,” Jon Arfstrom, an analyst at RBC, wrote in a research note.
Under its baseline economic assumptions, Synchrony is forecasting that the macroeconomic environment will not deteriorate. Nor is it predicting that President Trump’s tariffs will affect consumer behavior. So far, Doubles said, credit has been performing better than Synchrony expected, and consumer spending has been “pretty strong.”
“The uncertainty is clearly out there,” the CEO said. “It’s impacting consumer confidence, but at this point, it’s not impacting what consumers are actually doing.”
