Terence O'Hara reports for the Washington Post on Capital One's strategy.

The leaders in any business make their moves before they have to, from a position of strength," Fairbank, Capitol One's chairman and chief executive, said in an interview Friday.

"I guess my definition of bad leadership is when one is making moves when others are making you do it. That's why we made the decision years ago. When [stand-alone] credit card companies were a wildly successful business model, we made a conscious choice to be more than a credit card company."

Gretchen Morgenson reports for the New York Times on the decision by some large shareholders of Providian to vote against the proposed acquisition by Washington Mutual because the deal price is too low.

Let's hope that other investors, large and small, join in to reject the deal. After all, because the premium in the takeover is so small, Providian shareholders have little downside if it fails. The upsides, meanwhile, are evident: a possibly higher price for the company from another bidder or a rising stock price based on the company's improving fundamentals.

Tim LeeMaster reports for The Standard from Hong Kong on Alibaba's use of a small Hong Kong-based merchant bank, Seraphim Capital, for negotiating its recent deal with Yahoo!

John Chi, one of Seraphim's founders, says his firm's approach is inherently different from the fee-driven, deal-based model that he said dominates the modern investment banking industry.

"We think more like a stakeholder,'' said Chi, who along with partner Casper Huang gets paid for his services with warrants and free equity, not fees.

Eileen Alt Powell reports for the AP on increases in the minimum payment amounts due on credit cards.

The changes being phased in this year are the result of a directive issued by federal banking regulators, including the Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, in 2003.

Barbara Grunkemeyer, deputy comptroller for credit risk, said the regulators were concerned that when the minimums were set too low, consumers' payments were barely covering the interest and fees on the cards and not making a dent on the principal amount that was owed.