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Yes

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It depends on how Wal-Mart approaches it.

If you look at supermarket giants in the United Kingdom, such as Tesco and Sainsbury. You will notice they offer banking facilities including personal loans and credit cards. They have even branched out into insurance products.

What these companies have really done is put their household name to a product via another company. With this I mean Tesco credit cards will actually go through a well-established bank. But by putting their name on a product such as Tesco credit cards the consumer gets offered a better deal.

Tesco will still receive a profit from doing this but the advantages to the consumer mean they will receive lower interest rates, higher interest free periods, transfer balance options and optional insurance protection.
Tesco for example like this because it keeps the customers happy and loyal to their brand. It's a very good partnership.

The wrong way to do it of course is to set up banking facilities that offer a service but charge high APR (annual percentage rates), hidden costs, commission based sales staff who will mislead customers on false consolidation options or reverting personal loans to high rate revolving credit facilities. This in its self looks cheaper in the short term but will end up costing customers a fortune.

The consumer is becoming more intelligent every day and can see more of what is actually going on as opposed misleading representation of a product.

Customers should welcome banking in Wal-Mart because it should mean cheaper facilities for their personal finance.

Learn more about this author, David Irvine.
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