cash limit to walmart billpay

The Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law provides national leadership in advancing laws and policies that secure justice to

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Initiatives such as exist to meet the need that Wal-Mart and others like it are ignoring.  In BankOn programs, financial institutions partner with community organizations to provide low-cost checking and savings accounts along with financial education in order to bring the un/underbanked into the financial mainstream and prepare them for success.  While Wal-Mart’s “Pay with Cash” program may help it remain competitive in the online retail market, it is not a way to improve the economic lives of the customers they serve. 

While Wal-Mart may be helping streamline the process of online shopping for the unbanked, the company is not doing them any favors when it comes to access to mainstream financial services and inclusion. To the contrary, Wal-Mart is making it easier for people to stay unbanked, rack up high fees in the fringe financial system, and miss out on building assets and ahead in today’s economy. 

Wal-Mart is also trying to compete in the rapidly evolving consumer payment market where new technologies allow customers to meaning they scan a bar code of an item at a Wal-Mart, or any other store, and are able to see where it is sold cheaper, most likely online.  Amazon even offers its own application, to entice brick-and-mortar shoppers to make purchases online. 

Recently, Wal-Mart launched another new program to compete with online giant, Amazon, that, to no surprise, does nothing to benefit the unbanked except lure them into buying more Wal-Mart products.   Amazon was trumping Wal-Mart in online sales due to lower prices and the ability to avoid paying . The new initiative,   Under the program, consumers can select items from Wal-Mart’s website then pick them up at their local Wal-Mart store and pay with cash. The program, which goes live next month, is targeted at the 20% of Wal-Mart shoppers who do not have bank accounts or credit cards and are currently unable to online shop.  

In 2004, None of these products, however, help unbanked customers gain access to bank accounts and avoid unnecessary fees. 

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Karen K. Harris

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Wal-Mart's "Pay with Cash" Program for Online Shoppers Doesn't Help the Unbanked : The Shriver Brief