Wal-Mart is planning to open bank in Utah

Three years ago, California lawmakers passed legislation tailored to prevent Wal-Mart from buying an Orange County industrial bank. Earlier this month, the East Bay Business Times reported that attempts to amend the law to allow companies worth less than $1 billion to form industrial banks were unsuccessful.

In 1999, Wal-Mart tried to buy an Oklahoma savings bank, Federal BankCentre, but was blocked by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

Still, the mammoth retailer pressed forward, offering limited financial services. In January, Wal-Mart announced a no-fee Wal-Mart Discover credit card that offers 1 percent cash back. It has, over the past three years, nurtured partnerships with MoneyGram International and SunTrust Banks, through which it offers services such as money orders and wire transfers.

According to a February 2005 article in BusinessWeek magazine, SunTrust "is experimenting with nearly 45 in-store bank branches co-branded as 'Wal-Mart Money Center by SunTrust,' with plans to expand to about 100 of them by early 2006."

Banking consultant Bert Ely of Ely & Co. in Alexandria, Va., told the magazine: "They're developing, in customers' minds, a link between Wal-Mart and going to the bank. That has powerful long-term implications."

Whitchurch insists concerns are not warranted.

"Wal-Mart will not compete with local banks," he said. "It will not offer loans. It will not set up branches. It will not have any real 'face' to the consumers. It will be a single office, located in a downtown or near-downtown office building."

Whitchurch declined to discuss the bank's likely asset size, except to say that it would be "small" in comparison to some of the state's other industrial banks.

As of Dec. 31, 2004, there were 29 chartered industrial banks in Utah with $120 billion in total assets. Merrill Lynch's industrial bank is the largest, with more than $66 billion in total assets.

Wal-Mart Bank likely will have five to seven employees, Whitchurch said. Most of its operations will take place electronically.

"This will truly be a back-office operation to help process transactions. The public, I don't think, would even be aware of its existence. Customers will not see it in stores. The only effect it will have is that eventually, it (bringing the operation in-house) will lower the cost of stuff at the stores."

At this point, neither the Utah Bankers Association nor the Utah League of Credit Unions object to the bank.