Is Walmart entering the money transfer business?

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Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:16 am

I received this email from a lad who I have known for a while:

Quote:

Information reaching me shows that you are now required to proceed to WAL-MART
stores to make the payment today for the legal document in your favor as you are
now advice to forget about the clark that asked you for an invoice.

Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:24 am

They usually have a WU office here, read that they sell Skype credits in the USA too, nice anonymous Wink

Might have to scoot over for the Xmas presents and some of those.

Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 5:07 am

Yuppers, Wal-Mart offers some kind of Money Transfer service. This article speaks of it. It looks like W-M uses MG as their vehicle though! Very Happy

(I do hate articles that have no "dateline" on them. Evil or Very Mad

)

National Bank of Wal-Mart article wrote:

It's a pretty big market and one that Wal-Mart has already started to tap. The retailer began offering money orders three years ago and has since added payroll check-cashing and money-transfer services. Today, the company's 3,066 stores and supercenters process about a million financial transactions a week.

The prices are predictably cheap:
A wire transfer to Mexico costs less than $10, compared to $14.99 at Western Union.

Money orders are less than 50 cents, compared to a buck or more at many banks.

Checks are cashed for $3, and customers aren't unknowingly steered into short-term loans at 300% to 1,300% interest rates, as happens at some unethical check-cashing outlets.
Wal-Mart doesn't have the check-cashers shaking in their boots -- at least not yet. For one thing, the check-cashers have Wal-Mart outnumbered, with more than 11,000 outlets cashing $55 billion in checks annually, according to the Financial Service Centers of America, a trade group representing the industry.

Likewise, Western Union has far more offices abroad -- 196,000 agents in 190 countries -- than MoneyGram International, the money-transfer service Wal-Mart chose as its partner and which trails with 75,000 agents in 170 countries. MoneyGram has about 10% of the estimated $65 billion that flows out of the U.S. in money orders, estimates Aite Group of Boston, while Western Union has 22%.

This is direct from the horse's ... mouth.

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