Discover Says It’s Exploring Sale of Its Student-Loan Business

Discover Financial Services is exploring the sale of its student-loan business, and will stop accepting new loan applications in February.

The sale won’t impact existing customers or their loans, Riverwoods, Illinois-based Discover said in a statement Wednesday. The announcement follows a Bloomberg News report in September that Discover was exploring the potential sale of the business, and analysts said at the time that the business could attract interest from Navient Corp. and SoFi Technologies Inc.

Discover’s board determined during a recent review that selling the business would allow the company “to focus on our core banking products, capitalize on our ...