Wal-Mart Plan Could Shake Up Bank Industry

By Steven Oberbeck, Salt Lake Tribune

Wal-Mart has a reputation for driving mom-and-pop grocery, hardware and other small stores out of business, but in Utah the retailer may be poised to disrupt an entire $120 billion industry.

Wal-Mart’s bid to open an industrial bank in Utah is drawing widespread opposition from consumer and financial groups nationwide – an outcry that could persuade Congress to shut down all federally insured banks owned by stock brokerages and retailers, most of which are incorporated in Utah.

“The industrial banking industry in Utah has operated relatively quietly and out of the limelight for years,” said Matthew Lee, executive director of the New York City-based Inner City Press/Fair Finance Watch consumer group. “The last thing it needed was for some retailing behemoth to come in and demand access to the same loophole that everyone else enjoys.”

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