Wal-Mart expands financial services with prepaid card

[Newsjock]

Source: Associated Press

Wal-Mart, furthering a lucrative push to offer financial services to its customers, will sell prepaid Visa debit cards that would allow millions of low-income shoppers who don't have bank accounts to keep up with an increasingly cashless society.

... The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. estimates that 40 million American households are “unbanked” or “underbanked”, meaning they do not have accounts at financial institutions and often pay excessive fees for basic financial services.

... The Wal-Mart MoneyCard costs $8.95 to buy and $4.95 for monthly maintenance. Cash can be loaded on the card for free by cashing a payroll or government check at Wal-Mart or direct depositing. Otherwise it costs $4.64 to reload the card.


Read more: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20070620-1356-wal-martfinancial.html

[kineneb]

1. nothing new, Rite Aid and Safeway sell them now

Debit cards are excellent for use on the web, as only the amount in the account is at risk. I have one for internet orders, and it works quite well. The fees are not that bad, and are better then the temptation of using a real credit card. You can only spend what you have put on the card.

[tech3149]

2. I'm very happy with cash, thank you

It works very well anywhere I go and nobody is taking their cut off the top or imposing unreasonable "processing fees". Beyond that, anyone who want's to track what I do and where I go, they have to sift through millions of hours of video tape.