[henryfjordan]

So? The people targeted for this card are those who otherwise aren't saving anything. The same people would be subject to larger fees at a bank and get sub-1% rates on a savings account. They benefit from this program. Why should Walmart not see that hole in the market and exploit it? Isn't that what this community is all about?

[gumby]

Yeah, I doubt it's much of a money maker for WM, even at WM's scale, as the transactions are so tiny. The bigger win is presumably that their customers might have some money to spend later on.

[Spooky23]

It's really just layaway without tying up a product. The customer benefits because the cash is safe. Walmart benefits from the goodwill and high probability of the money being spent with them.

[oconnore]

Capital One 360 pays 0.20/0.75 APY (checking/savings respectively) with no fees or minimums (I'm sure others do too, I just happen to be a customer ^).

So... they are not benefiting. They are losing out on interest and a real bank account, and Walmart is seducing them to stay with a lottery.

[protomyth]

Capital One 360 is for people with better credit than the folks in the article have. If you have means then you get better investments. Heck, a lot of the people in the article are rejected just trying to open a bank account.

AmEx allow direct deposit to their Bluebird card which is another Walmart card.

[morgante]

> Capital One 360 is for people with better credit than the folks in the article have.

They don't pull your credit to open an account, so I don't see how that's true. I've had one since I was 18 (and had no credit history to speak of).

[protomyth]

No credit is different than bad credit. They do claim they stopped using Chexsystems as an additional check but they still check credit.

A lot of financial institutions like to offer products to 18 year olds. Ask about credit cards issued to college students.

[rdl]

I'm sure they pull chexsystems.

[morgante]

ChexSystems is different than a credit report. They can clear you even if you don't have any credit or have bad credit.

[twblalock]

The article mentions that many people are unbanked because they fear overdraft fees, or have had to pay them before. This is a well known problem, and it drives people to use check cashing stores and debit cards like the one WalMart offers instead of banks.

[flukus]

They can't get debit cards from a bank? Even my mastercard is tied to a debit account.

Edit - from the comments below it sounds like the issue is caused by a fucked up banking system more than anything.

[protomyth]

They cannot get a bank account to get a debit card. Banks and a lot of credit unions have become problematic for low income folks.

[flukus]

Why is it hard to get a bank account? There is no risk to the bank from a low income person having an account, worst case for them is it's empty.

[rdl]

There is risk to the bank for bad-credit people having an account.

1) CSR interactions cost them way more than they'll ever make from the account, if the person stays poor forever

2) A lot of banking actions are not proper "transactions" or atomic in the CS sense -- you can end up overdrawing an account pretty easily. A genuinely poor person is eventually going to get charged off on this.

A lot of poor people fail chexsystems (bank account credit check, basically) from bounced checks, and thus can't open accounts. Which then limits their access to the banking system, including receiving funds, forcing them to use more expensive alternatives.

[protomyth]

https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/dealbook/2013/07/30/over-a-...

[sigstoat]

you can overdraft debit cards, and of the college students i've known over the years, that's the most common thing to overdraft.

and then find out about your overdraft (and the 17 following it) a week later when you get a letter in the mail.

[flukus]

> you can overdraft debit cards

Not always, my debit cards have always had the overdraft facility turned off. If there's no money in the account then the transaction doesn't go through.

[rdl]

It's possible to overdraft a debit card even if overdraft is not enabled on the account, due to how some merchants process some transactions.

[toomuchtodo]

Unsure why this is so downvoted? Several banks support turning off the overdraft feature, which just causes debit transactions to be declined (or ACH items returned).

[SamReidHughes]

They're benefiting because before they were not saving in the first place.