2020 Annual Report

2020 Annual Report

A Leading Digital Bank and Payments Partner

Discover is one of the largest digital banks in the United States, offering a broad array of products, including credit cards, personal loans, student loans, deposit products and home loans.

The Discover brand is known for rewards, service and value. Across all digital banking products, Discover seeks to help customers meet their financial needs and achieve brighter financial futures.

Discover Card

? $71 billion in loans ? Leading cash rewards program

Student Loans

? $10 billion in student loans ? Offered at more than 2,400 colleges

Personal Loans

? $7 billion in loans ? Debt consolidation and major purchases

Home Loans

? $2 billion in mortgages ? Cash-out refinance and home loans

Deposit Products

? $63 billion in direct-to-consumer deposits ?Money market accounts, certificates

of deposit, savings accounts and checking accounts

Discover Global Network, the global payments brand of Discover Financial Services, strives to be the most flexible and innovative payments partner in the United States and around the world. Our Network Partners business provides payment transaction processing and settlement services on the Discover Network. PULSE is one of the nation's leading ATM/debit networks, and Diners Club International is a global payments network with acceptance around the world.

Discover Network

? $181 billion volume ? 20+ network alliances

PULSE Debit Network

? $212 billion volume

Diners Club International

? $24 billion volume

To my fellow shareholders,

A year has passed since our world changed virtually overnight as we faced the greatest public health crisis in a century and the resulting economic contraction. We remain grateful to those on the front lines of this battle, including healthcare and emergency workers, and everyone who has taken personal risk to make sure the essential services of our society keep running.

Like every enterprise, Discover was tested in 2020 like never before. This included rapidly transforming the way we work, shifting resources and priorities, trimming expenses and implementing new ways to support our customers and partners through difficult times. In addition to responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and taking a stronger stance on racial injustice and inequality, we lost the Chairman of the Discover Board of Directors, Lawrence Weinbach, who unexpectedly passed away. We will miss his sharp strategic intellect and warm spirit.

Despite the challenges, I am proud to report that we are weathering the storm well thanks to the foundation on which our company was built: a focus on the customer; strong credit risk management; and continuous investments in people, technology and analytics.

Protecting our Workforce In a matter of a few weeks, we enabled employees to work from home, and provided increased scheduling flexibility and additional benefits, all to help them care for the health and safety of themselves and their families. Meanwhile, we implemented remote hiring at our Customer Care Centers, allowing us to onboard new employees to maintain our industry-leading service levels and answer calls within a few minutes, despite increased volumes through the worst of the downturn.

Customers, Partners, Communities As unemployment levels increased, we acted swiftly to offer our millions of customers help, reassurance and compassion. We expanded payment plans and temporarily waived fees so customers could get fast access to their deposits funds. We helped cardmembers with disputes on travel cancellations and other unexpected outcomes of the pandemic. We also supported our payments business partners--issuers, acquirers and merchants--who needed our assistance to navigate these uncharted waters as they served their customers.

Given the increased need in the community, we stepped up our philanthropic commitment by providing immediate resources to organizations like Feeding America, the World Health Organization and food pantries across our regions. We encouraged our employees to increase their philanthropic giving, and they responded with a 12% rise in donations over 2019.

Roger C. Hochschild Chief Executive Officer and President

Discover is well-positioned for the recovery that will eventually come. We have a loyal customer base, amazing employees, one of the best brands in financial services and industry-leading products.

And, as the country reflected on its path forward for racial justice and equity after the tragic killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, among others, we took a fresh look at how we hold ourselves accountable for creating a truly diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace. We formed a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Office to identify opportunities and develop strategies and actions in recruiting, hiring, supplier selection and more. Externally, we made donations to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. and the Equal Justice Initiative, organizations committed to social justice and the elimination of race-based discrimination. We also launched the Eat It Forward campaign to provide $5 million in grants to Black-owned restaurants, a segment hard-hit by the pandemic. In response, consumers submitted more than 41,000 nominations.

Strong Execution in Challenging Times Reacting quickly at the onset of the pandemic, Discover adjusted our credit management strategies, launched a program to reduce planned expenses by $400 million, and ensured that we maintained our strong capital and liquidity position, even as we significantly built our reserves for potential charge-offs. While we pulled back on marketing spend in the second quarter, as our competitors went dark, we maintained our presence and gained market share in both our credit card and student loan businesses. To meet changing consumer and merchant needs, our Payments business launched Secure Remote Commerce to make the e-commerce checkout experience easier and rolled out network updates to combat online fraud.

Looking Forward As a result of the 2020 experience, many industries will be changed, perhaps forever, including financial services. The challenge will be for companies to adjust and take advantage of the resulting opportunities.

Discover is well-positioned for the recovery that will eventually come. We have a loyal customer base, amazing employees, one of the best brands in financial services and industry-leading products. We have unique assets in the rapidly evolving payments ecosystem. We continue to make investments--including upgrading our technology, our operations and our analytics capabilities. Our digital business model, strong capital position and robust funding channels allowed us to operate effectively during this downturn--and will support future return to growth.

Thank you to the millions of dedicated employees, customers, business partners and investors for your support in a challenging year.

Roger C. Hochschild Chief Executive Officer and President March 16, 2021

A Look at Our 2020 Performance

The challenges of 2020 highlighted the strength of our digital banking business model and the outstanding execution of the entire Discover team. Throughout the year, we maintained our unwavering commitment to protect our employees and provide industry-leading customer service, while also taking quick action to mitigate credit risk and manage expenses without sacrificing initiatives for long-term growth.

Credit remained strong throughout the year, with the 30+ delinquency rate down 52 basis points to 1.89% and the total net charge-off rate down from the prior year to 3.03%. This performance was supported by conservative credit management and the credit risk actions we took at the onset of the pandemic, which included tightened underwriting on new accounts, fewer promotional rate offers and a reduction in credit line increases. While these actions, combined with high payment rates, resulted in a 6% decrease in total loans, many of our competitors experienced more significant declines in loans; despite this challenging environment, we were able to gain share in our card and private student loan products. New card accounts were down 8%, and sales volume decreased 2% as spending patterns shifted dramatically due to the pandemic.

Average consumer deposits grew 21% and now represent over 60% of total funding. We achieved strong growth while continuing to actively manage deposit pricing: our online savings rate decreased 120 basis points in 2020, which provided a meaningful benefit to our net interest margin.

Diluted earnings per share was $3.60 and return on equity was 11%, reflecting the impacts of the challenging economic environment. We maintained our dividend throughout the year and remain committed to returning capital to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.

Meanwhile, we continued to launch new products and features and hit new milestones across our business.

Consumer Banking

While Discover is best known for credit cards, our growth strategy continues to focus on offering a variety of competitive lending and deposit products with great features to help make it easier for people to manage their finances and realize their dreams of a brighter financial future. 2020 was a strong year for this segment of our business.

Discover Home Loans Discover Home Loans experienced 35% growth in 2020 and continued building its innovative and award-winning digital mortgage process. We rebranded "Home Equity Loans" to the simpler "Home Loans" to better reflect our product offering, which includes mortgage refinances and home equity loans.

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