Walmart Takes Another Whack at Banking
If this wasn’t America, and we collectively didn’t have the memory of a bar of soap, 2007 wouldn’t be considered to have taken place long ago. But for those of us (read: me) who don’t remember 2007, let me remind you of that auspicious year in banking.
It was auspicious not just because 2007 was the last of the great banking years, when everything finance seemed to be destined for ever-greater rewards and ever-dwindling risk. It was auspicious because Walmart tried to take over banking in that year.
The battle over Walmart’s industrial loan charter in 2007 was nothing short of a war for the beating heart (read: profits) of retail banking. I mean, Walmart does have sales of more than $400 billion annually, after all.
While the ILC charter was eventually killed, Walmart seemed to cast its bank charter aspirations aside, and instead settled for smatterings of banking services, such as the MoneyCard debit card for Walmart customers that was launched in 2007 and is managed by GreenDot. (Walmart owns a 1% stake in GreenDot.)
That flirting, in my opinion, ended last month with a very quiet announcement from Walmart that it was going to start offering small business loans to business customers of its Sam’s Club division. (See coverage here and here and the official announcement here.) The short of it is Sam’s Club will be facilitating loans of $5,000 to $25,000 to Sam’s Club members. Superior Financial Group of Walnut Creek, Calif., will be running the program for Sam’s Club. The long of it is Walmart has sparked a program the likes of which it aimed to launch with its proposed ILC program. It’s a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too moment for Walmart.
Lest you think this is a minor program, consider Sam’s Club’s numbers. Sam’s Club has more than 47 million members today, although a small percentage of them are businesses. There are more than 600 Sam’s Clubs nationwide.
Superior is an interesting venture. It was started in 2005, but is already the largest SBA lender through the Community Express program. Superior pushed so hard on the Community Express program in 2008 that it ended up running afoul of the SBA. Interestingly, the company’s link to its list of board of directors is not functioning; we are trying to determine whether Walmart is playing Superior like it did GreenDot and has secured an equity position in the lender.
Walmart can call this what it may, but to my mind Walmart has taken another step into banking, and commercial banking at that. So to take stock, Walmart is in credit cards, debit cards, small business lending, consumer credit, in-store bank branches, check cashing, merchant processing, money transfer, and tax preparation. And they sell toasters. Welcome to the Bank of Walmart, folks.
Please login to join discussion
