FALLS CHURCH, Va., Oct. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Moody's Investors Service, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch, Inc. have relaxed their respective credit enhancement levels for Capital One Master Trust securitizations.

In a securitization, the credit enhancement provides protection for security holders against deteriorating performance of the assets in the trust. In its Capital One Master Trust, Series 2000-3 New Issue Report, Moody's commented that the key variables considered in evaluating credit enhancement are expected steady state losses, payment rates, and yield, adjusted for potential performance variance in a different economic environment over a transaction's life.

A Capital One Master Trust securitization featuring an uncapped floating rate coupon will now require an 18.75% credit enhancement percentage, down from 20% at the beginning of this year for the AAA class. Levels required for the A Class will decline from 10% to 8.75%. Transactions featuring a fixed rate coupon will have enhancement levels decreased from 17% to 15% for the AAA class and from 8.5% to 7% for the A class. For each class of security, the credit enhancement percentage equals the dollar value of the classes subordinate to such class divided by the total transaction dollar amount.

"Lower enhancement levels should reduce the marginal funding cost for Capital One's primary source of funding," said David Willey, Senior Vice President of Corporate Financial Management.

Capital One Master Trust was established in September 1993. It currently has 19 series and $11.7 billion of securities outstanding.

Headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, Capital One Financial Corporation (www.capitalone.com) is a holding company whose principal subsidiaries, Capital One Bank and Capital One, F.S.B., offer consumer lending products. Capital One's subsidiaries collectively had 27.1 million accounts and $21.9 billion in managed loans outstanding as of June 30, 2000. Capital One is one of the major financial service providers on the Internet, with online account decisioning, real-time account numbering, and online retail deposits. Capital One is a FORTUNE 500 company that trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "COF" and is included in the S&P 500 index. SOURCE Capital One Financial Corporation

CONTACT: Sam Wang, Media Relations, 703-205-1180; or Paul Paquin, Investor Relations, 703-205-1039; both of Capital One Financial Corporation/