Retailing giant Wal-Mart may be pulling American Express prepaid cards from its shelves due to poor sales, according to an analyst report from Jefferies & Co.
The Amex cards, branded under the name "bluebird," were sold at 180 Wal-Mart stores on the West Coast
But now it appears that Wal-Mart may be scaling back on the partnership due to limited consumer demand, analysts say. That could be good news for prepaid company Green Dot, which distributes Wal-Mart's own branded prepaid card.
"While we lack official confirmation, our channel checks indicate that American Express Bluebird reloadable prepaid cards are being removed from the approximately 80 Wal-Mart locations in Western states where the cards were being piloted," write Jefferies analysts Ramsey El-Assal and Jason Kupferberg, in a report published Monday.
"We believe that a termination of the American Express pilot in the context of lackluster Bluebird card sales (implying no further rollout of Bluebird across Wal-Mart's remaining US locations) could remove a significant competitive threat/overhang for Green Dot," it adds.
Spokeswomen for both American Express and Wal-Mart said simply that the cards continue to be tested in "a number of distribution channels." Neither would confirm nor deny the analyst report.
Reuters
