Retail Giant WAL-MART Announces Remittance Service

On the morning of April 18th, the retail giant Wal-Mart Store Inc announced on Thursday that it will introduce new remittance services, hoping to change the entire remittance industry at a lower and simpler cost, challenging Western giants such as Western Union and Huijin international.

WAL-MART's new remittance service is called Walmart-2-Walmart, which allows customers to remit at most $900 between over 4000 WAL-MART stores across the United States. The remittance service, which will be launched in April 24th, is WAL-MART providing more foundation to its traditional low income customer base. financial service Many of these people are abandoned by traditional banking systems.

The news of WAL-MART's remittance service led to Western Union and quick remittance international. Price of stock Down immediately. According to WAL-MART, the remittance fee below US $50 is US $4.5, and the service charge below US $900 is US $9.5, which is 50% or even more than that of other services in the industry.

According to the content of the website, Western Union A $900 remittance charge can be as high as $76. The cost estimate service of Tae international website shows that the company may charge $73 to the US $900 remittance.

As Huiyuan international, a partner of WAL-MART's existing remittance service, its share price has been particularly hit. According to the filing documents submitted by the securities regulatory authority, 27% of the fee and investment income of Huijin international in 2013 came from cooperation with WAL-MART.

In the new remittance service, Wal-Mart Choose to cooperate with Euronet Worldwide's Ria Money Transfer. According to the agreement with speed international, WAL-MART has the power to launch its own remittance service.

However, Walmart-2-Walmart services also have their own shortcomings. At present, services are only available in stores in the United States, and the remittance amount is limited to US $900. Speed international can also provide customized services to customers who need large remittances outside the US.

"Daniel Eckert is still a valuable partner for us and our customers," said Daniel Eckert, senior vice president of WAL-MART services. "We just seized a chance to provide simple and direct remittance services," he said.

Many local banks have tried to cooperate with remittance service providers such as Western Union, to provide new sources of revenue by providing services to low-income customers. Many banks provide business space for Western Union in their branches, hoping that the latter customers can be attracted to buy other products, and these banks are also divided into service fees from Western Union.

According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Company report, in 2011, about 34 million Americans were classified in the category of "no banking services" or "insufficient banking services", that is, they did not have checking accounts or savings accounts, or did not use such non banking services as cheque cashing and payday loans. This figure has increased significantly compared with 3080 in 2009.