Wal-Mart: Which aisle for business loans?

[True_Blue]

As a fairly progressive banker, I admit I’m always on the lookout for ways to expand our income.

But it never occurred to me before to start stocking our lobby with sweat pants, diapers, jewelry, fishing tackle, small appliances, garden furniture, auto supplies and groceries.

I was, however, recently inspired by the example of Wal-Mart. Its subsidiary, Broadstreet Financial Services, has applied for federal deposit insurance for a proposed nationwide Wal-Mart industrial bank to be headquartered in Utah, a state with 33 industrial banks boasting $115 billion in assets, making that state, to industrial banks, what Switzerland is to numbered accounts.

Yes, Wal-Mart wants to get into the banking business. So it seems only fair that my bank be allowed to compete with Wal-Mart in the grocery and dry goods business, right?

more....
http://www.cobizmag.com/articles.asp?id=936

[Kiouni]

1. did you see

the article about how walmart is going to open their own clinics for discount health care. Great i can get 5 whity tighties for a buck and a colonoscopy all in one convient place.

[KT2000]

2. They are planning medical clinics

too.
I think their corporate policy is simply hubris.

[NYC]

3. The Bank of Wal-Mart.

First, imagine you live in a small town where Wal-Mart’s national economies of scale and “Always the Low Price” advantage have driven every bank in town out of business, except its own. (Unlikely you say? Talk to a few of the hundreds of local retailers whose failed businesses were no match for the buying power in Bentonville.)

Now imagine that you are thinking about starting a small retail business that competes with Wal-Mart in some way. (Almost every retailer does.) Let’s say it’s a retail nursery.

You need a start-up loan, so you go to Wal-Mart, ask the greeter where the loan department is and, after wending your way through the automotive supplies and window coverings departments, you find a loan officer (a bit green because he was just promoted from the garden shop).

He takes your application, which your CPA has assured you makes an airtight business case for the loan. Then he pores over your confidential business plan. The plan includes how you plan to compete with Wal-Mart.

For some reason, despite a sound plan, 20 years of experience as a manager in the nursery business, ample collateral and a solid credit rating, you are turned down for the loan.

You might suspect that the loan denial could be the result of a conflict of interest.

[War Pigs]

4. Don't forget the digital rectal exams.....

wait, that's only for new hires and local retailers:spank:

[JPZenger]

5. Walmart is already very into banking

The Walton family already owns a big chain of banks in the south.