Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores, which is fighting opponents over its application for a banking charter, has begun offering retail financial services through its own branded ATMs. Wal-Mart, which has insisted it has no plans to enter retail banking if its industrial loan company charter is approved but would use the charter just to process billions of dollars of transactions, said it is testing ATMs to make services such as ordering gift cards more convenient.
Wal-Mart owns and operates the cash machines in its test program, except where state law stipulates it has to partner with a financial institution. The Wal-Mart ATMs bear a green 'Wal-Mart Money Center' logo. Wal-Mart already operates one of the nation's largest chains of check-cashing operations, and also provides a variety of loans at hundreds of its stores, even while leasing out in-store branches to hundreds of CU and banks.
