Discover Financial Services might be the major FI most engaged in spending on information technology today.

Which is why it is worth noting that the company claims it is already “seeing good returns associated with those” spending efforts, according to R. Mark Graf, the credit card issuer’s chief executive officer and executive vice president.

The spending at Discover is coming mainly in its direct banking unit, where expenses climbed 18% to $884 million last quarter compared to the same period in 2014. This despite a measly 1% increase in direct banking revenue last quarter to $2.1 billion.

This is about digital transformation at Discover. Late last year, Discover finished a core banking switch to Infosys’s Finacle from Fiserv. Earlier this year, in an interview with Institutional Investor, David Nelms, Discover’s CEO, said that Discover was essentially disrupting itself:

To some degree, as a leader in direct banking, we are sort of the disruptor. We have one branch, we rely on technology, and that is creating all sorts of new opportunities with two-way texting, instant communication with consumers and new capabilities to integrate at point of sale with special offers from merchants. That is something that, as a focused direct bank, we really love and take full advantage of.

And that comes at cost. Discover is clearing in spending mode, with CFO Graf describing its IT spending as “being made there very heavily.” Here’s how Graf put it yesterday during Discover’s earnings call:

[D]igital investments [for direct banking] are also forefront critical and are consuming capital at this point in time and we’re seeing good returns associated with those. And I think you already know we’re actively engaged in migrating all of our banking platform products to a new core banking system as well. So that’s a driver also. So we watch the expected payback and the budgets associated with all these projects very, very closely, and I’m comfortable that we continue to have a disciplined process around the investments we’re making.

That’s 18% YOY expense growth that Graf views as disciplined. And it will be, as long as there is ample payout.

Discover stock [ticker: DFS] has lost 13.8% of value since the start of 2015.