Wal-Mart Plan Won’t Slow CU Expansions

PHOENIX – Credit union partners of Wal-Mart Stores were surprised by this week’s announcement that the retail giant will open 1,000 MoneyCenters inside its stores and are anxious to learn more about the plans. “Just like everybody else, we’re going to wait and see what occurs,” said Jason Meyer, a spokesman for Desert Schools FCU, which has 21 in-store Wal-Mart branches and is poised to open another four by the end of the year. Karen Benedetti, vice president of marketing for Service CU, said the five Wal-Mart branches the New Hampshire credit union has opened this year have been profitable and provide a great way to reach thousands of potential members it might not have had access to. The $1.1 billion credit union, which plans to open two more Wal-Mart branches by year-end, is confident the Wal-Mart MoneyCenters won’t compete to sell the same products. “It looks like the overlap is minimal, but the consumer has to understand that,” Benedetti told The Credit Union Journal. Both Benedetti and a representative of Landmark CU, which operates two Wal-Mart branches in Milwaukee, said that Wal-Mart had not contacted them to explain its plans for the in-store MoneyCenters, but they had been notified by FSI, the Atlanta-based branch developer which helped develop their Wal-Mart branches. Wal-Mart, which abandoned plans for a bank charter earlier this year, said it plans to increase the number of its bank-like MoneyCenters from a current 225 to 1,000 by the end of 2008. The MoneyCenters will offer check cashing, wire transfers, account transfers, bill payment, and a new prepaid Visa debit card for the unbanked, with other services and products planned in the future.