Wal-Mart benefits from anti-bank protests

The nationwide protest against the country’s richest might end up unwittingly benefiting them.

Consumers are using Wal-Mart, the world’s richest public company, to cash checks, pay bills and transfer funds amid nationwide protests to close personal bank accounts in protest against corporate greed, The New York Times reported. 

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Wal-Mart has over 1,000 Money Centers in the US, a popular destination for cash-strapped customers before the bank protests. Consumers are charged 1 percent to cash checks under $300 and $3 for cashes checks ranging from $300 to $1,000.

The Times: “We have a tremendous opportunity ahead of us, and it’s largely due to what you’re seeing around us happen in the industry,” said Daniel Eckert , head of Wal-Mart Financial Services. “We’re not a bank, but we can serve a lot of types of functions you would see someone go into a bank for.”

The company abandoned plans several years ago to obtain a federal bank charter, which sparked fear and opposition from the banking industry that Wal-Mart could drive out business.

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Although Wal-Mart may not have been part of the big players that contributed to the financial crisis, one of the company’s Money Store partners is, the Atlatnic Wire reported:

"GE Capital, however, epitomizes the too-big-to-fail model and nearly brought down its parent company, General Electric, during the financial crisis." 

Wal-Mart conducted research a year and a half ago and found that customers paid between $200 to $400 in bank fees during the span of six months.